The Book of Psalms (30-Day Journey)ਨਮੂਨਾ

The God I Trust

Psalm 23:6 Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. (NIV)

How can you trust something or someone whose very existence seems immeasurable and sometimes intangible? If I can’t comprehend something, does that make it untrustworthy? Is understanding necessary for trust? If you’re married, you may come to a quicker answer to this rhetoric. Can you trust your spouse even though you don’t fully understand what they are thinking? “Yet you brought me out of the womb; you made me trust in you, even at my mother’s breast. From birth I was cast on you; from my mother’s womb you have been my God.” (Psalm 22:9-10 NIV)

Does the baby going through the process of birth understand what is happening? Is the baby consciously choosing to participate? Is it analyzing the scenarios and possibilities to make the best educated choice of its arrival? At a couple of hours old, is this baby examining the room for the most nutrient-digestible food? A newborn baby doesn’t understand how the process of birth and sustaining life works, but it trusts the provider, its mother.

“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.” (Psalm 19:1 NIV) Here we see the incomprehensible, immeasurable nature of God declared through the heavens, the skies. Like the sun racing from one side of the sky to the other “like a champion rejoicing to run his course” (19:5 NIV) All of these images in nature silently shout of the Lord. For, “the earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; for he founded it on the seas and established it on the waters.” (Psalm 24:1NIV)

Who is this God who owns all the earth and yet the earth declares of His glory back to Him? Who is this God who sits above us and holds everything perfectly together? Who am I in this celestial dance? Surely this God doesn’t take notice of me. Yet, “The Lord gives victory to his anointed. He answers him from his heavenly sanctuary with the victorious power of his right hand.” (Psalm 20:6 NIV)

It’s from this heavenly sanctuary that God gives victory to his anointed. It’s through His authority and power (i.e. the incarnation) that we can even speak to Him. It’s His power that allows us to lament. If He were just a man, He could do nothing when He hears our cries, but “In you our ancestors put their trust; they trusted and you delivered them. To you they cried out and were saved; in you they trusted and were not put to shame.” (Psalm 22:4-5 NIV)

So what comes first? Is it worship or trust? Do I worship Him because He has proven to be trustworthy? Or does his proof of being trustworthy come because I worship Him? The answer is neither. We simultaneously worship God as we learn to trust Him.

“When you appear for battle, you will burn them up as in a blazing furnace. The Lord will swallow them up in his wrath, and his fire will consume them.” (Psalm 21:9 NIV)

But even if He didn’t swallow up your enemies in His wrath…He is our shepherd, and we lack nothing. God’s worth is not dependent on our trust or our worship; therefore, it’s best to approach trusting in the Lord from our humanity. God is God. We are man. We cannot comprehend how things so perfectly fit together in our lives or why things go so destructively wrong. Therefore, we’re never going to understand the miracle of the incarnation and the permission it has given us to access God. So, approach each day trusting God as a human. Use David’s psalms of lament as an example of vulnerability. Approach it with uncertainty, and shaking hands, and stumbling words. Approach it with doubt, timidity, and discomfort. Trust God from your most human self, and from this authentic place, can we then fully worship the Lord?