Giving Birth to Vision – #5 Trusting in the Lord
Proverbs 3:5
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.”
Trust = to flee to for refuge, to have confidence, secure, to place all care in, to hope
* We put our trust in lots of things, but I wanted to look at how much trust we place in just metal alone!
Airplanes – Tons of metal to hover high above the clouds & take us to places thousands of miles away
Submarines – A submarine is among the most technologically advanced machines ever built. With computer technology, precision navigation, atmosphere regeneration, sensitive sonar equipment, nuclear power, and precision weapons, it makes for a most unusual environment. Imagine living & working in a 3 story space that was 300-foot long, 30-foot wide, with no windows! Then, after you lock the door… submerge beneath the surface of the ocean and travel silently underwater for months at a time with 100 or more other crewmembers!
Satellites – To float around in the galaxy & send us the signals that we rely on everyday… cable, GPS systems, cell phones, news, online mapping devices
Suspension Bridges – A bridge in Japan that is 6 lanes wide, and spans over 4 miles long! Also costs $20US in tolls to cross 😉
** As children, we tend to have so much more trust than we do as adults.
Think about…
- Riding on the crazy rides at the amusement park
- Running & jumping onto a rope tied to a branch of a tree dangling high above a pond of water, then swinging out into the middle (hopefully) and letting go!
- Right down from our property, there’s a bridge where the kids stand up on the railing & jump into the water below… it’s not a high bridge by most standards – but it’s high enough for me to worry about their safety!
You probably have lots of examples of crazy things you did as a kid – maybe some we wouldn’t want to share – as to keep the youth among us from getting any ideas!
Bu as we grow up;
– we get wiser
– we see the accidents that happen from crazy stunts
– we see how other people hurt us
– we see how other people have broken our trust
No matter what we have seen, heard, learned, or think we know… we still need to TRUST IN GOD with our WHOLE HEART & not rely on the things that we think we know!
The bible says… we must come to God with child like faith… trusting Him to catch us, to carry us, to walk with us, to get us to our destination!
Psalm 20:7-8
“Some may trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God. They are brought to their knees and fall, but we rise up and stand firm.”
Trust God to care for us…
Jesus believed it!
Mark 12:41-44
Jesus sat down near the collection box in the Temple and watched as the crowds dropped in their money. Many rich people put in large amounts. Then a poor widow came and dropped in two small coins. Jesus called his disciples to him and said, “I tell you the truth, this poor widow has given more than all the others who are making contributions. For they gave a tiny part of their surplus, but she, poor as she is, has given everything she had to live on.”
We might have said… no… Ms., please you keep your money – you really need it! But, what did Jesus do, He let her give, because He knew that she was activating her faith. He knew that His father would take care of her & provide her needs, because of her faith & trust in the Lord that she demonstrated by giving!
** If our trust is on things such as; political leaders, economic conditions, spiritual climate, weather… then our feelings will rise & fall each day!
But… God offers us constant source of contentment and encouragement and strength, regardless of circumstances. Confidence in the Lord is a secure and unshakeable foundation!
Sometimes, God builds our trust & faith in Him through the trials that we face!
What are we trusting in?
A. Other People’s Ideas? What the world says we should be doing? What looks logical?
1 Sam 17:39 – David tried on something that was not familiar to him to go into battle
“David fastened on his sword over the tunic and tried walking around, because he was not used to them. ‘I cannot go in these,’ he said to Saul, ‘because I am not used to them.’ So he took them off.”
David, the young shepherd boy, heard the challenge from the Philistines to send someone to fight Goliath. No one volunteered to fight except David. King Saul reluctantly agreed, and offered David his armor. David put on the weighty equipment, but quickly concluded he could not fight in this heavy armor.
God equips each of us in such a way that is unique to our strengths and abilities.
David knew who he was and who he wasn’t. David was trained as a shepherd to use another weapon. For David, it was a slingshot. David showed great maturity in realizing he could not be effective with Saul’s armor.
What is God developing inside of you, that you can trust Him with?
What we can do is only ½ of the equation. We need to mix using our abilities with our faith in God!
Abilities alone = not enough
Faith alone = not enough
Faith without works is dead… we need to act on the faith that God works in us!
B. Are we relying on our knowledge?
War games… after our military learns head knowledge, they practice through wars games. But it’s not until the reality of the battle is upon them, that they know if they have learned enough to fight & win.
You’ll never experience the power that God wants you to live in by just acquiring Bible knowledge alone!
We have many people say…. Oh that person knows the word, oh they can quote the word, oh they have studied the word… but until you are living the word… you only have your own knowledge & you’re not walking it out by faith – trusting God.
This only helps you become a spiritual intellectual – which produces little fruit!
* David became a great warrior and leader of a nation at an early age. His training ground was his job as a shepherd in the open fields. When bears and lions sought to take his sheep, he personally fought them. This was his early preparation for future battles!
When he stood before Goliath, he knew how well his training prepared him!
C. Are we relying on our own abilities?
Although David trusted in the Lord at an early age & demonstrated that He could trust God instead of man, as he got older – he began to rely on His own strength!
1Chron 21:1-2
“Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel”
David made what might appear to be an innocent request of his general Joab – to count the number of troops available to them.
You see to count the troops was a great sin in Israel, because it demonstrated that you were placing more trust in numbers than in the living God. David’s decision to take a census was a failure to keep his trust totally upon the Lord.
God punished David and reduced his forces by bringing a plague that killed 70,000 men (1 Chron 24:14,15).
God always requires total trust in Him for our victories!
Some examples of other things we trust in today
- our bank accounts
- our skills
- security of our workplace
When we begin placing our faith in these things instead of the provider of these things we get into trouble with God.
Story of Trust: Blondin a 19th Centurt Acrobat
Blondin was a famous tightrope walker back in the 1800’s. He would accomplish unbelievable things on a tightrope across Niagara Falls.
In 1860, a group from the Royal party in Britain came to watch the famous Blondin. That day, on a tightrope 160ft above the falls and over 1000ft long, Blondin walked on stilts, and again blindfolded. Then he went out into the middle – stopped halfway and ate an omelette. Next he wheeled a wheelbarrow from one side to the other, and returned with a sack of potatoes in it.
After these amazing accomplishments, Blondin approached the Royal party, and asked the Duke of Newcastle, “do you believe that I could take a man across the tightrope in this wheelbarrow?”
“Yes, I do”, said the Duke.
“Then, Hop in”, replied Blondin.
The Duke politely declined Blondin’s challenge, because although he might have believed that Blondin could take a man across the tightrope, he wasn’t willing to trust Blondin’s with his life.
God doesn’t just want us to believe that He could take care of us, He wants us to trust him with our lives!
Proverbs 3:5
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.”
God is causing us to have a greater trust in Him, and a greater vision of what He wants to do through us & for us!