church at watershed

in an age of philosophical skepticism and theological cynicism, added to a culture where relational infidelity is celebrated in all areas of media, it is no wonder that “trust” is a word few people would say can truly exist. betrayals wreak havoc on the lives of all people from young to old.  we have learned at a young age that you can’t trust anyone and so we build up walls to keep people at a distance.  we do the same thing with God.  in fact that is the one thing God has wanted from us since the beginning.  he created us for relationship and love, and the one thing he wanted from us was trust.  think about it, he placed the pinnacle of his creation, made in his image and breathing his breath of life, in a garden, and gave us all we needed. he only asked us to refrain from eating the fruit of one tree.

the problem came when the serpent entered the scene and deceived eve.  it wasn’t that she didn’t know about the fruit or what God had said to do that made her susceptible to the serpent’s deception, it was that he planted a seed of distrust in eve.  the serpent was able to make eve think that God was keeping something great from her.  he made her think that God was a liar and she fell for it, but God cannot lie.  he didn’t lie when he said that humankind would die if we ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  we did die.  we died spiritually by becoming separated from God and we all die physically.

the point is that when it comes to trust, though we may not be able to trust others because we are all broken, we can trust in God.  God gave us his scriptures so that we could know him and come to trust him.  he has taken thousands of years to prove to us that we can trust him even though his ways are not our ways and his thoughts are not our thoughts.

God told abraham that he would give him a son, and when he was 100 years old abraham’s wife, sarah who was 90, gave birth to their son Isaac.  God told moses that he would lead the israelites out of egypt.  he told the israelites in the wilderness that he would feed them daily with manna, but only a day at a time – and when they gathered enough for 2 days except on the day before the sabbath, it got all nasty and had maggots in it.  God told the children of israel that they would take the land of canaan.  God said that if the people of israel followed the torah, that he would bless them, but he would curse them if they did not follow the torah.  God did everything he said he would do just as he said he would do it.  God proves himself faithful every time…every time.  the question becomes, will i trust him, will you?