All I Have Seen...

July 18

"The Lord defends those who suffer; he defends them in times of trouble. Those who know the Lord trust him, because he will not leave those who come to him." Psalm 9:9, 10

JUMP! I'LL CATCH YOU!

Your daddy is standing in a swimming pool out a little bit from the edge. You are, let's say, three years old and standing on the edge of the pool. Daddy holds out his arms to you and says, "Jump, I'll catch you. I promise."

Now, how do you make your daddy look good at that moment? Answer: trust him and jump. Have faith in him and jump. That makes him look strong and wise and loving. But if you won't jump, if you shake your head and run away from the edge, you make your daddy look bad. It looks like you are saying, "He can't catch me" or "He won't catch me" or "It's not a good idea to do what he tells me to do." And all three of those make your dad look bad.

You don't want to make God look bad. So you trust Him. When you trust Him, you make Him look good -- which he really is. And that is what we mean when we say, "Faith glorifies God" or "Faith gives God glory." It makes him look as good as he really is. So trusting God is really important.—John Piper


Perhaps the most wonderful thing our God desires to see lain at His feet by those who profess faith in His name is their trust. He states it quite clearly in Proverbs 3:5 where He says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not to your own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.

Why should we trust Him? What evidence to we have of His faithfulness? As Ralph Waldo Emerson stated so beautifully, “All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.” Each of us has seen manifestations of the faithfulness of Jesus in our own lives.

We have seen Him “supply all our needs, according to His riches in glory,” Ephesians 4:19. We have known His “peace that passes all understanding to keep our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus,” Philippians 4:7. Since we have seen His faithfulness abound in our day-to-day supply, can we not then trust Him for the needs that He’s not yet met?

Yes, we can, because THAT is what faith is all about—as Hebrews 11:1 tells us, it is, “…the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” As Romans 8:25 tells us, “If we hope for what we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.”

We are strengthened in faith when we discipline ourselves to trust in the unseen, unfulfilled promises of Jesus as we rely upon the confidence we have gleaned in Him by what He has already performed in our behalf.