How do we come to trust God? When did we begin to do so and why? We can only answer from our own experiences. Seems as if I’ve known God my whole life. I got saved at the altar a couple of times, as far as I understood. Looking back, I can see that I did not truly trust in Him. I believed (acknowledged) Him, but I can’t say that I acted like I needed Him or leaned on and trusted in Him. I reference alot, these days, to the fact that God intervened. He worked all things out together for good. He directed our path. He placed people in our lives that began to bear witness to Him. As we began to hear the Word again in church, as I began reading a Bible that I borrowed from a friend, and as my life bore fruit that began to rot and smell, I now know that those moments were part of His intervention.
Michael Pearl of No Greater Joy Ministries once said that, “the same Word that gives us salvation is the same word that fives us assurance.” We have the salt covenant, Numbers 18:19, Isaiah 43:1 and Jeramiah 29:11 are just a few verses that tell us of God’s heart towards His children. And there are the stories in the bible that tell of great miracles such as the fish and the loaves, the wall of Jericho, the plagues of Egypt and so on that are great examples of what God’s math looks like. The Bible makes mention of God winning us over. I remember the Bible study called Experiencing God by Henry Blackaby pointing out that God communicates to us through His Word, through His people, and through circumstances. I am so thankful for that Bible study, and these days it rings true to me like never before.
I am most confident that we all can point to circumstances that we know without a doubt were responsible for a new understanding of things about God. Of course we all have had encounters with people in our lives that we refer to, if only in the back of our minds, as heaven sent. And without the Word of God our country might have never been established. The founding fathers fought battles and wrote words in reverence to and by the guidance of God’s Word. For years I have threatened to write a book about our story. It will always begin by telling of how He intervened. How He knew that we needed Him. How He began teaching us to trust Him in a whole lot of little things and how that brought us to a full confidence of knowing that we can trust Him in the big things as well.
As you look back on your own life, when did you begin trusting Him? In what ways has He shown you what His math looks like? How does it shape who you are today. He is so faithful!