Another Reminder

“That thy trust may be in the LORD, I have made known to thee this day, even to thee.” (Pr 22:19 AV)

I know I wrote about this verse in the recent past.  In that entry, the Spirit led me to expound on the context more than on this single verse.  Solomon gives the reason for his book.  All this wisdom in the universe would be useless if it didn’t lead to faith.  Rather than considering to broader context, let us yield to the Spirit as He encourages us to trust in the LORD.  This is hard to do.  But it is the way of life for all who call upon Jesus to save their souls.  Faith cannot be avoided.  We are constantly confronted with situations greater than ourselves.  Thus, we naturally place our faith in something.  Currently, we are under a winter storm warning.  A nasty little storm with freezing rain, hail, and snow is descending upon us.  There is a possibility we could eventually lose power.  We cannot control the supply of utilities coming to our home.  So, we place our faith in the power company to keep us warm and well-lit.  If the power goes out, we trust them to restore our power in a timely manner.  My wife and son and father-in-law are weather freaks.  The more severe weather there is, the more they come alive.  It’s a sickness, really.  Me?  I hate things I cannot control.  I despise living at the mercy of unpredictability.  No thank you.  Give me sunny days in the high sixties and I am all good.  Fear and anxiety are the opposite of faith.  The question becomes, in what do we place our trust?

This verse is a great one to memorize.  Short, succinct, and always applicable.  We are faced with a lot of large changes in life.  The small ones may be inconvenient, but the large ones can be often traumatic.  I have a thick head of hair.  Every time I get my hair cut, the barber remarks how thick it is and how much he wishes he had my hair.  I was told to expect to lose hair as I age, but I don’t see it.  That is until something happened last August that made me think I had a serious disease somewhere.  It was about a month after my wife’s cancer surgery.  I had thought that I lost her.  She was not the same person I knew.  Anyone going through a cancer diagnosis and all that encompasses understands it is one of the most traumatic things a person can go through.  Patient and caregiver alike.  To say there was a lot of stress and anxiety would be an understatement.  Starting the week of her surgery and for about a month after, I was losing a lot of hair.  I mean, a lot.  I had to clean the shower drain after each shower or the water would not go down.  I don’t know the percentage, but it was significant.  I thought I might be heading in a bad direction.  Then I did some research.  One of the causes of rapid hair loss is severe stress.  Well, there it was.  My trial of faith was causing baldness.  The problem with my hair loss was it was a manifestation of failure on my part not to trust the LORD.

We can trust hospitals.  We can trust doctors.  We can trust treatments and medicines.  But they are temporary.  Physical life is not forever.  All the LORD provides for our comfort and healing is appreciated and welcomed.  But we have to be careful to trust the LORD and not the things He provides.  Often, God’s answers have a way of replacing God Himself.  We can trust the paycheck to come.  God has provided employment that provides that paycheck.  In other words, our trust can become dispassionate and sterile.  Our faith becomes mechanical.  Our faith becomes a subject for theologians to argue.  I think Solomon meant more than a practical application to this verse.  I think he meant a very personal one.  All that God has given in His word is meant to accomplish one thing.   It is meant to establish a relationship of dependence and trust which we place in the person of God and not necessarily that which He does.  Our trust must be in the LORD no matter what He decides to do or not do.  Our trust must be in the LORD.