Trust

When I got on the train home yesterday, I needed to hear a word from God. He had been speaking to me all day, but I’ve been dealing with some situations that have been draining my energy and it’s been hard to believe His promises. I had just heard a beautiful word at a service at Times Square Church – again by Pastor William Carrol. They’re all great Pastors there, but lately Pastor Carrol has been bringing words that I really have needed to hear. He spoke specifically about God making a promise to us and how He begins to fulfill it, and the images and ideas and language that he used touched my heart and spirit deeply. It was a special service for Pastors and leaders in ministry, so I don’t know if it’s available online as their other sermons are, but sometimes the words they share at these smaller services become messages at their regular services, and if that happens I’ll give you the title so you can hear it for yourself. One of the points he made was that God understands our doubt, and that what He asks of us is that we trust in Him, that we bring our doubts to Him instead of trying to hide them, that we have an honest conversation with Him because then He can help us with our unbelief. He used the passage from Genesis 18:1-15 when Sarah laughs and the Lord asks why she is laughing. Her response is that she didn’t laugh, and what Pastor Carrol spoke about is that at that point, when he reads this passage, he feels that for a moment things just stopped. For a moment, the Lord stopped in His fellowship with Abraham - He had been eating a meal that Abraham had prepared - and it wasn’t the fact that Sarah laughed that caused Him to stop in that moment, but that she tried to hide it from Him and that she didn’t trust Him with her doubt.

Hearing that message was so important to me – I have been doubting so much, but thank God I have been bringing it to Him. I know I can’t hide anything from Him and I don’t even want to try. I know He is the author and finisher of my faith, that I can trust Him with everything, even with my doubts, that He is able to help me through unbelief and worry and fear. On my way into the city, I had seen a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson on the video screens they have in the train station. I don’t remember it exactly, but it was something like this, “Because of all the things I have seen, I am able to believe in the things I have not seen.” I tried to look it up online and I couldn’t find it, but what came up were the Bible verses on faith and belief, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen,” (Hebrews 11:1) “Because you have seen me you have believed, blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” (John 20:29) “If you can believe. All things are possible to him who believes.” (Mark 9:23) And I found a website where you can look up verses on belief, http://daily.bibleversecentral.com/2009/06/bible-verses-about-believe-part-1/.

So I started my day with a message about belief, and then I hear the message about trust and belief, but still on my way home I needed a word. When I got into the train and sat down, the Holy Spirit said to take out my Bible. I had read my Bible as I always do when I was on my way into the city, and for yesterday the Lord had given me Colossians chapters 1-4 and Psalms 71 and 72, but the Spirit said to take it out again and I willingly did because even with all that the Lord had been speaking to me I felt in such need of a word. I keep my Bible in a protective bag that ties around it, and as I got it out I overheard the conversation of two young men sitting across from me. They were talking about a Christian college that they were working on a project with – they were not Christians, or at least not outwardly so, but they were saying that the people at the Christian college were some of the nicest and best people they had worked with and that the college itself was a really good one, a quality one, one of excellence. I looked at them and smiled and said, “Christians are nice people,” and they said, “Yes, they are.” We started to talk and one of them pointed to my little book and asked me, “Is that a Bible?” which of course it was. I told them that I had gotten it out because I had felt in need of a word from God because of something I was dealing with, but that hearing them talking about the Christian college turned out to be the word that I needed. There was something in what they said that made me think of how the Lord speaks to us as Christians about loving in truth, not in words only, how it is when we do thing things that we ought to be doing, we become a holy sacrifice that is pleasing to the Lord.

When I just looked up those verses, I found 1 John 3:18, “My little children, let us not love in word, neither in tongue; but in deed and in truth,” and Mark 7:6, “He answered and said unto them, well hath Isaiah prophesied of you hypocrites, ‘This people honoureth me with their lips but their heart is far from me.” And then I found Psalm 141:2, “Let my prayer be accepted as sweet smelling incense in your presence. Let the lifting up of my hands in prayer be accepted as an evening sacrifice.”

In my conversation with the young men on the train, we talked about how there are some people who make religion look bad because they act in ways that are not true to what God calls us to do. I told them to keep helping this college because no matter what their own faith beliefs are, they will be blessed because they are helping people who are good Christian people, people who are trying their best to do what God calls us to do. One of them said to the other, “see, we’ll get our salary and get to go to heaven,” and I said God would bless them in other ways too. They both grew quiet, and I knew the Holy Spirit was doing His work, and I thought how amazing God is, that I had needed a word and He gave it to me in a way I’d never expected.

On my way walking home from the train station I stopped at the supermarket and my checkout person was named Joel. Immediately into my mind came the words, “I will restore to you the years the locusts have eaten,” which is from Joel 2:25. God has been restoring all things to me that I had lost in my life due to my own foolish living before I was born again. And He’s been restoring all things that were taken from me by other people and things that happened that I wasn’t responsible for. He is restoring all things just as He has promised, and though my unbelief rises up to question whether it truly will be all things, when I have trouble believing in the promises He has made, He speaks a word, then another and then another, and keeps speaking to me all day long, and then again tomorrow and the day after that, every moment if I need it, as long as I trust Him with my doubts, and let Him know I need to know He’s there.

Blessings,

Jannie Susan