In God We Trust?
I often tell the class that I teach each Sunday, “What God repeats, we should revere.” It’s my way of reminding all of us that we need to pay attention to those elements of God’s Word which are divinely inspired to be restated.

I’m not suggesting there’s a formula at play here – as in the more something is repeated the more important it is. After all, “born again” is only mentioned three times in the Bible (KJV), and that’s a crucial concept! “Rapture” emerges only as an English derivative of an obscure Latin term, and “trinity” isn’t mentioned once. For that matter, “Bible” never even shows up in the Bible.

This doesn’t mean that the Rapture won’t happen or that the concept of the trinity is untrue. The doctrines of the rapture and the trinity are both taught within the canon of Scripture we call the “Bible,” and the Bible remains complete and inerrant. I know of no responsible “born again” believer that has challenged the veracity of any of this.

But if God does choose to re-emphasize something in His inspired Word, I think chances are He wants us to take notice of it. At least that’s a safe bet by my way of thinking.

So why do we struggle with “trusting God” so much? Throughout the Bible we’re exhorted over and over to place our trust in God. It’s one of the most ubiquitous themes in Scripture. It’s not possible to overlook this straightforward instruction apart from willful omission.

In an opposite respect, we are also warned against trusting in things apart from God – things like wealth (1 Tim. 6:17), people (Jer. 17:5), plans (Prov. 19:21), material goods (Matt. 6:19), and family and friends (Micah 7:5-6). For the independent and “DIY” types, we’re even warned against trusting in ourselves (2 Cor. 1:9). Many of these cautionary passages highlight the foolishness of placing trust in anything but God.

Point made. So why is it so hard to do the right thing?

I’ve been thinking a good deal about trusting God as of late. I don’t necessarily know why that’s the case, but it’s something God has placed on my heart for me to ponder during this season of my life. As I’ve done so, I’ve been reminded of the beautiful words of Proverbs 3:5-6 which state, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will direct your paths.”

These two verses qualify as ones to live by, and they constitute a command as opposed to an option. They are charged with great insight, and they help us unpack the operative question as to why it’s so hard to trust God. Let’s look at some basic applications from these verses.

First, real trust is full trust. There is no such thing as partial trust. That’s like saying one is “partially pregnant.” You’re either pregnant or you’re not; there is no other state between those two conditions. Partial trust amounts to nothing more than mistrust.

Few of us trust God fully because we generally fail to know Him fully. Skepticism naturally wells up in any of us when we have exhausted our own means and we are compelled to depend on something or someone we are unfamiliar with. Those situations spawn uncertainty and suspicion, and it’s really no different with God. When we need to depend on an infinite God that we’ve chosen to define by finite measures, we’re going to have challenges trusting Him fully. That’s our problem – not His.

Secondly, it’s the heart that’s called into accountability here, not the mind. That’s an important distinction. A mind can accumulate a great deal of knowledge, but unless that person is properly applying that knowledge via the conduit of a heart that is fully trusting God and is obedient to His standards, they do not have wisdom. Because plenty of very knowledgeable people have their heart’s passions in the wrong trajectory, it is impossible for them to fully trust God.

Therefore, the expression “all your heart” takes on special significance here. The heart is our spiritual pivot point. It’s the very hub of our emotions and desires, and there can be no reservations with it. It’s not possible to ration one’s heart and fulfill this command to “trust in the Lord.” One cannot quarantine any portion of their heart from a right relationship with God and expect to discover what it means to fully trust Him. Proverbs 3:5-6 outlines an all-or-nothing proposition.

This ties directly into the next part of the passage which challenges us to get rid of our crutches. That’s a good way to think of the concept of “leaning on (our) own understanding.” If you take the crutches away from someone who needs them, they’re going to hit the floor. We depend on our crutches to hold us up, and God wants to be the one to support us that way.

Face it, we all need a crutch from time to time. A basic takeaway from these verses in Proverbs is it’s inevitable that we’ll face the need to lean. That’s guaranteed. It’s not possible to be human in this sinful and fallen world and not need to lean – at least once in a while. The bigger issue here is not when we lean or why we need to do it, but rather what we will lean on when we do.

Really – it’s about who! The challenge Proverbs 3:5-6 lays out for us is our need to upgrade our crutches from all the “what’s” we have to a single “who.” Most of us have many crutches we depend on more than we would like to admit. There are just as many names for them, including, but not limited to: alcohol, pornography, money, tobacco, friends, prescription meds, “sick” days, pets, secret affairs, family, food, hobbies, jobs, experience, and education.

Our crutches can be good things and they can be bad things. In and of themselves, they might be vices or virtues. Either way, Proverbs 3:5-6 reminds us that they all have the potential to occupy the affections of our heart and to numb our capacity to fully trust God.

If we are honest with ourselves, we like our crutches. They are familiar to us. We’ve formed habits and patterns with the crutches we employ, and part of our identity is formed around the ones we choose to lean on the most. The way we choose to lean displays our values and priorities, and Proverbs defines this dynamic as being our “own understanding.”

The toughest part of this passage for me is the next one that instructs me to consciously place God front and center in every aspect of my life. The phrase “….in all your ways acknowledge Him” is easy to say but hard to do. I’ll be candid – I’m still figuring this part out.

I do know it’s much more than offering a trite prayer before every activity I undertake or before commencing with every decision I’ve already resolved to execute. It’s much more than wrapping an artificial enthusiasm around my unknowns or prescriptively stating “I’m trusting God” through clenched teeth.

Right now, I think it has much more to do with faithful obedience in one direction. It’s staying the righteous course when self-centeredness and integrity are clashing. It’s being consciously aware that the eyes of God are on me all the time as I put one foot in front of the other along the narrow path. It’s about finding contentment with God as my portion (Ps. 119:57), and it has everything to do with nurturing the hope I have in Him (Lam. 3:24). In basically every respect, it has something to do with not having the answers I want to have. These are the principles I am settling on as I refine my understanding of what it means to “acknowledge God in all my ways.”

And finally – all this leads to God “directing (my) paths.” It’s harder for me to appreciate those translations which say He’ll “….make my paths straight.”  I’ve never really seen a straight path; even the good ones meander a bit. That’s why they are “paths” and not sidewalks.

My larger takeaway here is God will be the one doing the directing and not me. It’s the end result that comes from satisfying the previous conditions. It’s my full trust in God that enables me to see things for what they really are in both the earthly and heavenly realms, and to stop striving against His sovereign will for my life.

It’s seeing the bigger picture and being convinced that this moment, too, is part of eternity. Again, my obligation is to faithfully do my part with the terms and conditions I find myself in, and to not worry about the elements which I cannot see or comprehend and which are out of my control.

In God We Trust?
My guess is I’m a lot like you. Most of us are learning what it means to live out the wonderful truths of Proverbs 3:5-6. That learning process is likely to be a life-long exercise, but my prayer for all of us is that God will extend His abundant mercy and grace to us as we diligently seek to trust Him, to lean on Him, and to acknowledge Him in all our ways.

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In my prior installment of this topic, I ruefully noted the not-so-uncommon reaction too many Christians have to studying Biblical prophecy. As I clarified, it’s often an unsupportive response that is one part sarcasm, two parts arrogance, and altogether a disrespect of God’s divine Word.

If such people would study their Bible with the reverence and teachable attitude they most need, they would be arrested by the words of 2 Peter 3:3-4. Peter issues a clear warning that one of the indications of the end times would be the arrival of “scoffers” and “mockers” who would belittle the themes of Biblical prophecy – chiefly those matters which point to and promise the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

The average Christian may be inclined to feel that such attacks would come from outside the church. This has not been my experience. I’ve seen instead that the most strident scorners of Biblical prophecy come from within the fellowship of the body of Christ.

The higher up the food chain one goes, it seems the more potent the opposition becomes. We have prominent Christian leaders today who are so biased against the responsible study of Biblical prophecy that they’ve become tools of the secular culture against the fundamentals of our faith.

These so-called “Christian leaders” are made of the same stuff the Pharisees were made of. They have a veneer of virtue and righteousness, but they are a sham (Matt. 23:27). Their agenda is their own, and a proper relationship with Jesus Christ and His divine Word are not part of that. Some of these individuals will miss Jesus the second time just as their New Testament forerunners missed Him the first time.

It all goes to show that there are great benefits to the proper study of Biblical prophecy, and in Part 1 we reviewed four of those:

First, it urges us to live Godly. Seeing ourselves accurately within the present and the future exhorts us to place a priority on the Lord’s return. This enables our responsible decisions in this life, and it equips our faith.

Secondly, it gives us comfort and hope. If all we had to live for were the degenerate conditions of planet Earth, then we qualify for “having no hope” (1 Thess. 4:13). But our imminent rapture gives us immeasurable hope that the world cannot comprehend (Titus 2:13).

Thirdly, it provides a blessing.  As Revelation 1:3 underscores, that blessing is the result of a right response to the prophetic Word of God. Those who do not permit the truths of Biblical prophecy to impact their lives are completely missing out.

Lastly, the study of Biblical prophecy gives us stability. There are a lot of wacko people and ideas out there.  It’s important to have the proper grounding in truth so as to recognize and repel the “clever cunning of men” (Eph. 4:14).

Already, we can see that the benefit of studying Biblical prophecy is self-evident. But there is even more to gain by engaging in the effective examination and application of the prophetic Scriptures. Here are four more reasons to do so:

IT IS AN ESSENTIAL PART OF SPIRITUAL HEALTH

Popular pulpit themes today emphasize fostering “Christian community,” tithing, loving our neighbor, finding Jesus in our trials, showing care, and so on and so on. These approaches have their place, but churches that constantly sip their doctrines through a straw stay immature and unhealthy.

It wasn’t like this in the early church. When Paul taught his “baby Christians” in Thessalonica, he didn’t feed them the pabulum of socially-acceptable “devotionals.” He fed them real meat. If you compare the content of 2 Thessalonians against the backdrop of 1 Thessalonians, you will find Paul emphasized the doctrines of the end times.

The early church of Thessalonica may have only been weeks or months old, but Paul used his limited time with them to teach them about the antichrist, the Day of the Lord, the Rapture, and the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.  In fact, Paul was direct in reminding them of this. He asked in 2 Thess. 2:5, “Don’t you remember that when I was with you I used to tell you these things? 

The cowards in our pulpits today could learn much from Paul’s example. Paul considered the prophetic Scriptures to be an essential part of spiritual health, and so he dispensed them up front.

IT AVOIDS IGNORANCE

Paul didn’t want the believers under his care to be “ignorant” and “uninformed” (1 Thess. 4:13), and so he compelled them to study and learn the prophetic Scriptures. Churches which avoid the prophetic themes of the Bible are far more “ignorant” than they think they are.

This matter takes on a critical dimension when we understand that “….the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy” (Revelation 19:10). I’ll translate. You cannot fully comprehend the person and work of Jesus Christ until you study and understand the prophecies which reveal Him.

This is an ice cold dash of water to the face of anyone who has set aside Biblical prophecy as unimportant or as the “non-essential part of God’s Word.”  The truth is – they are showing their ignorance! They only partly know Jesus because they’ve chosen to partly learn of Him.

IT IS HELPFUL IN COUNTERACTING MATERIALISM

This is one of those “rubber meets the road” reasons. It’s a practical reality check. Do you want that new boat? How about that second kitchen you’re planning to build? Do you really need 55 pairs of shoes?  Why does your family of four have seven mountain bikes?

The truth is that most of us have too much stuff. It clutters our lives, our closets, our garages, our storage spaces, and even our yards. It also clutters our relationships, clouds our values, and claims our heart (Matt. 6:21).

He who dies with the most toys doesn’t win anything, and he may lose something so much more important. A proper understanding of the truth that we won’t take our material possessions with us, that we don’t even own our very lives, and that it’s all going to disappear anyways (2 Peter 3:10, Luke 12:20) keeps our hearts and minds in the place they need to be.

The penitent study of Biblical prophecy reinforces to us over and over that we need to get our priorities right. It motivates us to frame our decisions with an eternal perspective. As the words of the great hymn say, “And the things of earth will grow strangely dim In the light of his glory and grace.”  So true!

IT HELPS US TO WORSHIP

I need to be blunt here. “Worship” is not throwing up your waving arms, rolling your eyeballs back in your skull, twitching spasmodically, and divesting yourself of any conscious engagement with Biblical truth. The time of “praise and worship” in many churches today is little more than emotional frothing in a sea of peer pressure.

True worship is an issue of the heart, and its expression is seldom defined or measured by prescriptive outward antics. It is the result of encountering God and His divine truth, and subordinating one’s will to His ways. It stems from a permanent relationship rather than a passing ritual.

By its divinely-ordained nature, reverent worship follows the recognition that God has revealed Himself to us. It is only divine truth – and a right response to it (see Rev. 1:3) – which can impact our emotions so that our worship brings proper glory and honor to God.

All of God’s truth, including His absolute sovereignty in our lives, holds infinite value to the humble heart, and it is worthy of our greatest passion. It is why Job – after receiving wave after wave of traumatic news – “fell to the ground and worshipped” (Job 1:20). How many of us would do the same thing in response to similar pain?

I confess I’m not moved much by most praise and worship songs today. But one song hits me at my core nearly every time: “Revelation Song,” originally written by Jennie Lee Riddle. The words are straight out of prophetic Scripture (Revelation 4), and they are a resplendent and awesome picture of our King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Really – worship is a right response to encountering God, and the prophetic Scriptures compel us to see God in a way that is vital to our faith. As we take in the magnificence of what is yet coming, our hearts and minds are moved to deep and passionate – and true! – worship.

The themes of this article are ones I could continue expanding on for a long time, but I wish to conclude by returning to the premise that the study of Biblical prophecy has multiple and profound benefits in the life of the faithful believer. Satan knows this fact very well, and so he’s done what he can to marginalize the importance of the prophetic Scriptures. Too many in the church today are heeding his seductions and abandoning the truth they need to embrace.

Sir Isaac Newton stated a long time ago, “About the time of the end, a body of men will be raised up who will turn their attention to the prophecies, and insist upon their literal interpretation, in the midst of much clamor and opposition.”  We live in a time where his words ring true.

May the Holy Spirit graciously minister to our hearts and minds, and may we be led as faithful servants even more deeply into the wonderful truths and benefits of the prophetic Scriptures.

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