By: Joanne Wilson
Originally published: December 12, 2022
Begin with 2 minutes of silence
Scripture
Psalm 13 (ESV, emphasis added)
1How long, O Lord? Will you forget me
forever?
How long will you hid your face from me?
2How long must I take counsel in my soul
and have sorrow in my heart all the day?
How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?
3Consider and answer me, O Lord my God;
light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death,
4lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed over him,”
lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken.
5But I have trusted in your steadfast love;
my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
6I will sing to the Lord,
because he has dealt bountifully with me.
Devotional Thoughts
It is not easy to trust, not only in another human, but in God Himself. It can only become a reality as we live, experience, and abide with the one we seek to trust. In his psalm David makes that very clear, for he feels that he has been abandoned and is full of sorrow. He needs God to hear him, to pay attention to him and help him out of his circumstances. He enumerates all of that for us, but the bottom line for him and for us is, “But I have trusted in YOUR steadfast love.”
Over the years of my walk with the Lord, I have seen the increasing development of the trust that I now have in the steadfast love of God for me. But I have been through many things which have brought me to the place of that trust: illnesses, the death of a son, the painful watching of a child with Parkinson’s, the death of all of our parents, close encounters with my own near-death experiences; the hurtful rejections of others, the powerful work of God in the way HE gave us prosperity, His unspeakable love covering over all our life.
Habakkuk 3:17-18 says:
17“Though the fig tree may not blossom,
Nor fruit be on the vines;
Though the labor of the olive may fail,
And the fields yield no food;
Though the flock may be cut off from the fold,
And there be no herd in the stalls–
18Yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
I will joy in the God of my salvation.”
There are many places in Scripture that speak of trust about our relationship with our Lord. One of my favorites is Psalm 37:5: “Commit your way to the Lord; trust in HIM and HE will act.” I am in this time doing exactly as that word from Psalms says, for there is an issue in my life that I am committing to HIM and trusting that HE will act.
Questions for Reflection
How has our Lord been involved in your personal development of trust toward Him? Where, right now, do you need to simply trust you Lord?
Prayer
Dear Lord God, I am so thankful for your work in my life; for all the good things and for all the things that have seemed painful. You, Lord, have been involved in the ups and the downs, and through it all youhave have shown me how to trust. I love you, my Lord.
End with 2 minutes of silence
Comments