Here’s a nice message that comes from the Bible. It went the email rounds but was anonymous, so I can’t credit the scholar.

In the very centre of the Bible, Psalm 118:8, it says (I like the Amplified version translated by Jewish scholars):

It is better to trust and take refuge in the Lord [God] than to put confidence in man [general term, men or women — humans in other words].

That’s pretty tough, the second part about sort of not being confident in other people. I thought, ‘How much can I really rely on others?’ Well, I rely upon my children… but then what I am really confident is that they will leave their dirty socks on the floor, causing me more work!

In fact, isn’t everyone else going to act out of his or her own self-interests? Will not others hurt me or just offend me sometime? If they don’t act against me, will they not just get in my way at the wrong time when I want to do something else?

It is not a question of ‘If’ another may prove unreliable, it is only a question of ‘When’. I choose then to ‘entrust’ people, but not get upset if they choose to go their own way. My happiness is not dependent upon them.

So God gets the points on the second issue. What about the first? How much do I trust God? Well sure I trust God… sort of. This was the hard one for me.

I have spent time talking, yelling, praying and weeping at God. He has heard stuff out of me that I just couldn’t repeat.

But do I trust Him? I have felt suicidal. I have felt like I have had my heart ripped out of my chest without an anaesthetic. Sometimes it seems I have felt lonely my entire life. But no!

Somehow I felt I was not alone, and something kept me going. Who was that there and then? My Father God! Do I trust God? Yeah, well I do, and I am really working at doing more of that.

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by Steve Gray
Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko from Pexels.