Trust and Assurance

We all place our trust in something or someone to get us through life. Some folks trust their smarts or their talents and abilities to make it. Some trust a business partner or their family and friends to be there for them in a crisis. Others put their trust in a large savings account. Throughout the Bible, God tells us that He is the only trustworthy foundation for our lives.

The Israelites were a finicky bunch. One minute they were rejoicing because God had saved them from this or that problem, and the next minute they were a pack of whiners. Remember the ten plagues God rained down on Egypt? He spared the Israelites from invasions of fleas, frogs, gnats, you name it — while using the plagues to secure the Israelites’ freedom from slavery (Exodus 7–11). Everybody was rejoicing as they left the bondage of Egypt — until they ran up on the Red Sea. With the Egyptians in hot pursuit, the people began to grouse and gripe (Exodus 14:11, 12).

God parted the waters, allowing them to get to safety on the other side, and then drowned their enemies (Exodus 14:26, 27). Once again the Israelites rejoiced . . . until they were hungry and thirsty. Then the bellyaching started all over again (Exodus 15:24). When God met their need for food and water, the Israelites were happy campers again. But when Moses went up on Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments and took longer than they cared to wait, they complained again—and made themselves an idol to worship (Exodus 32:1). The Israelites still hadn’t learned to trust God to continue to provide for them, so they made a god of their own. Are you seeing a pattern here?

Finally, God had had enough of their hardened hearts and lack of faith. He decided the entire generation of those who had come out of Egypt would not see the Promised Land. For forty years they wandered through the wilderness while their GPS kept saying “Recalculating. Recalculating. Recalculating.” They grumbled and complained every step of the way until all of the older generation had finally died off. They had witnessed God’s big, powerful miracles, but refused to trust in Him for the daily details of their journey.

God was trying to teach the Israelites something vital about faith: the battles they faced were not their battles — they were God’s battles. Looking back, it’s easy to snicker at their pigheadedness, right? But are we really all that different today? It might not be the Red Sea shaking your faith, but when a sea of doubt washes over you, how do you handle it? Do you put your faith in your own resources, or do you trust the One who can make a path through any obstacle? As David wrote in Psalm 20:7, “Some trust in chariots, and some in horses; but we will remember the name of the Lord our God.”

Taken from The Duck Commander Faith and Family Bible