Learning to Not Trust in Yourself
How the Sovereign Providence of God is Your Ticket to Peace of Soul and Mind
Good Morning!
For today's worship and prayer help I want to talk about a subject that is always and forever on everyone’s mind, but one that is probably the most difficult to define, and that is trust. We need to be able to trust those around us. We need to be able to know that we can trust those around us. It is how we go to bed at night, it’s how we leave our homes and go out into the world. Earlier today I was having a conversation with a fellow minister about how Christianity is necessary for there to be a high trust society. I hear (and remember) older folks talk about the days where you could leave your house unlocked and not be super anxious that someone wasn’t going to just come by and take all your stuff. While crime statistics are actually way lower than they used to be (there was a jump in petty and violent crime that rose precipitously in the 1960s and began to drop in the 1990s) it doesn’t feel like we are safer, in fact nearly everyone will tell you that they have never felt like things are worse on that front. Why is that?
Trust is almost more a sense than it is a thing to be grasped with the mind and that partly explains the reasoning here. We all know that a feeling of trust is vital to having a clear and well-balanced mental and spiritual state. Trust helps us get in the car in the morning and know that when we hit the brake the car is going to stop, that when we hit that light switch the ability to see will be the result. And usually when we think about this it's always about our relationship with something, or someone else. Can we trust our spouse to love us? Our employer to pay us? The government not to try and take things away, well maybe that last one is a step too far. ;) Yet there is often a person we don't think too much about, or really don't want to examine when it comes to this...and that is ourselves. Can you trust yourself? Well, the writer of the Book of Proverbs often has a meddling word that challenges our perception of reality and that it is definitely true in this case. Here is what Solomon writes in Proverbs 28:26:
Whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool, but he who walks in wisdom will be delivered.
Yikes! That hits a little too close to home. If I can trust anyone, shouldn't it be myself? Well, if we are being honest, who usually is the first person to lie to us about what is actually going on in the world? That the sin I am committing is okay because no one knows about it? Or that while it may be wrong for someone else to do or think this, it is okay for me because I know my own circumstances? Remember what Jeremiah wrote. The heart is deceitful above all things.
That's dangerous stuff to fall into. It is the kind of thing James warns us about, ". . . But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves." and it is also part of the warning about sin that John speaks to us in his first letter, ". . . If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." It makes us think more deeply about this question of trust. Who can we trust? And how can we know we can trust?
First of all we need to follow the Luke 18:13 model in prayer. We need to recognize that we can't trust ourselves in the flesh, we have to lay ourselves completely onto the wisdom of our God. His mirror found in the Word has to be where our conscience and soul are bound when we are asking questions about our own soul and our place in the world. It is in the person and work of Jesus Christ that we find that ground upon which we can stand, and trust that all things will be and are well. God in His grace shows us this in the parable of the houses on the sand and rock.
Because as we keenly know it is in Him alone we can trust, for the simple reason that He made the Heavens and the Earth. There is a helpful witness to this when Jehovah reveals Himself to Moses at the Burning Bush. When he asks God how Moses should refer to Him when he goes back to Egypt the Lord says, “I am Who I AM”, which is all the testimony we should need to find peace in our God. As Psalm 20:7 notes, ". . . Some trust in chariots, and some in horses; but we will remember the name of the Lord our God." The first thing we are always to be reminded about when it comes to God is that He is God and we are not, and this is exactly where the power of our trust in Christ comes from. Knowing that while I am a mess, I am weak, yet He is strong. Yes, Jesus loves me, not because of who I am, but because of what He has done for me and covenanted with me for all eternity. That I am His sheep, walking in His flock, and while I might fall into a hole or get chased by wolves my Sovereign protector will always be there to save my soul and body from one of its biggest enemies. Itself.
In closing, as you go about your day today trust in Christ in all things. Don't just hand over to Him the "hard stuff"...or even just the easy stuff. Give it all to Him, including and especially yourself. For as you learn to trust more and more in Him it will witness to your soul and heart that there is peace alone in the sovereign power of the living God who rules in and through His providence to provide all that you need, for as Jesus told the Apostle Paul, His grace is sufficient. Believe it and be at peace.
For today's reading take a look at this:
https://www.reformationscotland.org/2020/03/13/the-most-dangerous-kind-of-self-deception/
Blessings in Christ,
Rev. Benjamin Glaser
Pastor, Bethany ARP Church