TRUST WILL SET YOU FREE

Have you ever come across just the right book at a time when you really needed its wisdom? This happens to me all the time. I believe that God brings certain books into our lives at just the right time. It's one of the many ways that he communicates with us. Sometimes it's a magazine article or a lesson on TV. But the exact thing that I'm struggling with will suddenly appear in the form of a book, an article, a TV program or some other teaching tool.

The book I'm reading now is one that I bought a year ago. I finally picked it up this week and started reading. It's so good that I can't put it down. The book is titled, In God We Trust: But Only as a Last Resort. Trusting God should be the easiest aspect of Christian living. Yet we sometimes, perhaps often, have a hard time with it the book says. This is something I can relate to. I'm beginning to realize that the anxiety I've been feeling for the past three years has been caused by a lack of trust.

"Day after day, you and I tell God by our actions that we don't trust Him, even though He has proven Himself to us over and over again." Like many people, I have put my trust in something other than God. My constant worry and manipulation of situations proves my lack of trust. Only lately have I been able to relax. God brought this book to me to tell me what I've been doing wrong: "Don't put your trust in your friends, your bank account, your wisdom, or anything else. Put your trust in me."

"God says to us, If I can create an unlimited universe, if I can bring into existence the laws of nature, if I can hold the stars in space, if I can stop the sun from moving closer and burning up the earth or moving farther away and freezing the earth, if I can do all these things, then can't you trust Me?"

Oswald Chambers wrote, "All worry and anxiety come from the fact that we have calculated without God." When we try to work out solutions to our problems through our own wisdom and strength, we set ourselves up for sleepless nights, eating disorders, and days without joy the book points out. I'm learning that fear and faith cannot coexist and that faithlessness offends God. "Have you ever asked the Lord to forgive your sin of fear and unbelief?" the book asks.

We put our trust in so many things. We think that having money will give us peace. We put trust in our appearance and think that if we look good we will be content. We are more concerned about looking physically good than we are about people seeing the spirit of Christ in us. We buy designer clothes mostly to impress others. We depend on big incomes and big titles for our self-worth. Beauty, money, success, cars and houses are the things we seek more than God. Our materialism is destroying our trust in God.

One thing I've learned is that it's exhausting not to trust God. When we can't relax and really trust that God is who He says He is, and if we can't depend on Him for our welfare and our protection, we have no peace. Our minds become exhausted and we feel tormented. It's not the way God meant for us to live.

There's a simple formula that can set us free: "Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well." In other words, all the things we fear, all the things we worry about and have anxiety about will be taken care of if we put God first. That is such a simple answer, yet so many of us don't live that way. We have no faith. We just can't let go of the control. We think we know better. We think we can make things happen better than God can. So we ignore God and do it our own way.

Well I don't need to be hit over the head twice. I'm heeding the message and learning the lesson. Daniel Owens wrote a great book and by divine appointment it found its way into my hands at the exact time I needed it, when I was finally ready to listen. God communicates with us every day through the Holy Bible, through circumstance, and sometimes through the wise words of others. Our struggles are often the result of our refusal to listen and our refusal to trust God.