Trusting God and God's Word

Trusting in God's word demands two things of us:

Trusting in God and Trusting in God's Word.

Trusting in God is very like Hagar's declaration of faith: You, God, see me. It means, we are aware that God sees us, is aware of us, knows our need, is walking with us and looking on us.

Many of us don't have that. We may think we have this trust in God but we are often surprised when little God winks show up that shows that God has been -- as it were-- behind our shoulders all the time. When I write a scene in a story and use a particular line, I always jump for joy when God shows me that he's been with me all along as I wrote. Once I wrote a scene in a novel in which a character says, "She doesn't like my name Stevie. She says it's a kid's name." I went upstairs to go to bed and turned on the radio. Which I usually don't do at bedtime. And I turned it onto a station I rarely listened to. Two seconds after I did that, a called named Stevie called the station to say his girlfriend hated his name and says he should call himself Steve because Stevie is a kid's name.

That has happened so often that I can only smile and know that God is behind my shoulder as I write and that He gives me little godwinks to make he know He's with me. How wonderful it is to realize that God knows when we sit and when we stand. Psalm 139 He is a very present help in trouble.

Those who trust in God's word have to realize they really do believe that God's word in the Bible is true. That's often hard. Even harder is for them to believe that God's word is specifically for them. And often much harder is to believe that a hopeful dream was really sent from God and isn't wish-fulfillment.

There is also the idea that the word of God is living and active. Some folks use Bible verses as a kind of magical formula. They know the word is powerful and they have faith the word is working. This is good...but the danger is that they are so caught up in the spiritual mechanics of the "word" that they aren't really engaging with God and trusting Him... or trusting that He is personally involved in their lives and personally overseeing the word.