[Modified transcript of a midweek message published by Horley Baptist Church on YouTube[1], April 2020]
Is trust really trust unless there is uncertainty? Another mid week refection from Martin’s dog walk.
I took my first funeral this week, at least my first one since the lock-down and it was a pretty strange affair. You can imagine the whole chapel empty of chairs apart from the ten they had put out for the maximum 10 mourners that could attend a funeral. It was indeed strange but it was good to still be able to remember the life of someone who had died. The family had requested that we look at a particular passage during the service from John chapter 14 where Jesus talks to his disciples about his father’s house. His father’s house has many rooms, he’s going to go away there but come back and fetch the disciples after preparing a room for them. The passage starts with these words from Jesus where he says to his disciples “Do not let your hearts be troubled; trust in God, trust also in me”.
01:26 Probably the disciples thought “well, yeah, of course we trust you Jesus” because Jesus had been their friend and their mentor and their teacher for a number of years now. Jesus had done some extraordinary things, Jesus had never let them down, Jesus was special, Jesus was good, Jesus was kind, Jesus was loving, of course they trusted Jesus. But then Jesus goes on to share some rather strange things with them when he talked about having to go away, having to leave them and he seems to suggest that things are not going to go quite according to plan – at least not to the disciples’ plan. There will be some times when they would not understand what on earth was going on, there will be possibly some struggle.
02:27 You see, trust isn’t really trust until it’s put in a place where it’s going to be tested. Trust is a fairly empty gesture if there’s no reason why you wouldn’t trust someone. Perhaps for the disciples, their trust in Jesus was truly tested when they were put in the time of difficulty, of trial, of danger, of uncertainty at a time when they just didn’t have a clue what was going on and everything had not gone according for their plan.
03:08 We’re in a situation where maybe in the past I quite happily said “yeah, God I trust you, Jesus I trust you” but now you find yourself in a place where you have more questions than you have answers. Maybe you find yourself in a place of uncertainty where the future looks uncertain, the present looks bleak and you are in a time of anxiety and anguish – mental anguish, physical anguish, spiritual anguish. That’s when the question coming from Jesus “Do you trust God and do you trust me?” is a really important question because trust isn’t trust unless you’re willing to say ‘Yes’ when everything seems wrong.
04:14 In the Bible there is a book called Proverbs and basically it’s a book of pearls of wisdom given from a father to his son. Probably one of the most famous of these pearls of wisdom is found towards the beginning of Proverbs in chapter 3 verses 5 to 6. This is what it says “Trust in the Lord with all of your heart and lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways submit to him and he will make your paths straight”. Do you trust him? Do you trust God? Are you willing to acknowledge him even when your heart is breaking, even when you don’t understand, even when you have so many unanswered questions? Are you willing to say “Look God, you’ve never failed me in the past – people have, even Church has, but you have not therefore I say now and I state that I trust you“.
“I trust you God, I trust you Lord Jesus. I submit all of my ways to you, I make you the Lord of my heart and Lord God, I just pray that you will make my paths straight, that Lord God you do have a plan for me, a plan not to harm me, but to prosper me so, Lord God, I trust in you.”
[1] YouTube link: Do I Trust God?
Bible references: Proverbs 3 v5-6, John 14
~~~~~~~~
.
Return to Mid-week Meditations
Jump to Index of Bible Passages
.
Contributed by Martin Shorey; © the Author
