Trust in the Lord

Proverbs 3:5 - "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding."

When you seek to trust the Lord in certain areas of your life there is no shortage of people who will come along and tell you that, it's all well and good to trust the Lord, but you have to use common sense too. In our culture, and maybe just mankind in general, we don't like to be dependent on someone or something else. Self-sufficiency and independence are sought after and idealized. And this sort of thinking too often bleeds over into our relationship with God. We would never say this, but it's almost as if we are willing to trust Him with the salvation of our eternal souls, but when it comes to the everyday issues of our lives we need to take matters into our own hands and handle it ourselves. It is such a foreign idea for us to trust completely in the Lord and not lean on our own understanding at all. Most of the time we try to find a happy balance somewhere in the middle, we are willing to trust Him with our lives in general but when it comes to certain areas and certain decisions, I'm gonna go ahead and handle that one myself. But that kind of thinking is directly opposed to the clear teaching of Gods Word, and this verse in particular. You can't trust in the Lord with all your heart if your trusting in yourself with any of it. In Matthew chapter 6 the Lord Jesus was talking about our trust, not trusting in wealth and not becoming anxious about our lives because He will provide. And in the middle of that discourse He says - "The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is single, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!" The Lord doesn't want our focus and our trust divided between Him and anything else. He expects it all. If you are trusting in yourself or anyone or anything else then you are not trusting in Him with all your heart.

In reading through certain events in the life of David we get a good picture of what it looks like to "Trust in the Lord with all your heart" and not "lean on your own understanding." Back in the book of First Samuel Saul was anointed the first king of Israel, but the Lord anointed David to replace him. As you can imagine, this did not go over very well with Saul and much of the book of First Samuel consists of Saul chasing David in order to kill him. However, two times in as many chapters we find David standing over Saul with the opportunity and ability to kill him very easily, and yet he doesn't do it. Killing Saul would have been the logical thing to do, it just made sense. Ad on top of that, killing Saul would have been very profitable to David for several reasons. First of all, Jonathan, Sauls son, knew that God had chosen David to be king. He liked him very much, and he would not have hindered Davids ascension to the throne. If David killed Saul he would have ascended to the throne of Israel with no opposition. Second, if David killed Saul he would not have to run for his life anymore. It just made sense in both situations to put Saul to death, and there was no shortage of people to tell David that. In First Samuel 24 when David and his men were hiding in the cave and Saul went in to relieve himself, we read in verse 4 - "The men of David said to him, “Behold, this is the day of which the Lord said to you, ‘Behold; I am about to give your enemy into your hand, and you shall do to him as it seems good to you.’”" Humanly speaking, this was the perfect opportunity. The Lord had already said that David was going to replace Saul, and here is Saul, delivered right into Davids hand. Couldn't David take a hint? Didn't he know that he had to take matters into his own hands in order to fulfill the word of the Lord? Davids own men clearly saw this, and they plainly told him that the Lord had delivered Saul into his hands, he simply had to take action. So how does David respond? Verses 6-7 - "So he said to his men, “Far be it from me because of the Lord that I should do this thing to my lord, the Lord’s anointed, to stretch out my hand against him, since he is the Lord’s anointed.” David persuaded his men with these words and did not allow them to rise up against Saul. And Saul arose, left the cave, and went on his way." From a human standpoint we would say that David missed his chance. I guess he just trusted in the Lord too much. In fact he even says to Saul in verse 12 - "May the Lord judge between you and me, and may the Lord avenge me on you; but my hand shall not be against you." David was clearly trusting in the Lord with all his heart, because natural human understanding would have acted the very opposite of the way that David does in this passage.

Well, David may have missed his chance the first time, but he was about to get a second chance. In chapter 26 the camp of Saul was asleep and David went down into the midst of it. We're even told in verse 12 that no one awoke because "a sound sleep from the Lord had fallen on them." This is great. David missed the first time so God was giving him a second chance. He and his companion, Abishai, come right into the center of Sauls camp where Saul is sleeping with a spear in the ground right next to his head. This is obviously a sign from the Lord, right? How much clearer can He make it? And as if that wasn't enough , Abishai says to David in verse 8 - "Today God has delivered your enemy into your hand; now therefore, please let me strike him with the spear to the ground with one stroke, and I will not strike him the second time." We've all been in situations where a seemingly great opportunity came our way, but then we prayed about it and the Lord seemed to say no, so we obeyed the Lord and rejected it. But shortly thereafter the same opportunity presents itself, and we begin to question, "Did I hear the Lord right the first time? Maybe this is something God actually does want me to do." More often than not that second "opportunity" is a test. This is the kind of situation David is in right here. He knew that God was going to give him the throne, but here again, after David spared Sauls life, Saul is an easy victim. In both of these situations Davids trust is being severely tested. Do I trust the Lord to do what He said, or do I assume God wants me to take matters into my own hands? And in this latter situation David wouldn't even have been striking Saul himself. Abishai offered to do it. Now, David could have said, "It would be wrong for me to do this, but I'm not going to tell you not to do it. If you think that God wants you to kill him then do it." And he could have been delivered from his enemy with no blood on his hands. But how does David actually respond? We read in verses 9-11 - "But David said to Abishai, “Do not destroy him, for who can stretch out his hand against the Lord’s anointed and be without guilt?” David also said, “As the Lord lives, surely the Lord will strike him, or his day will come that he dies, or he will go down into battle and perish. The Lord forbid that I should stretch out my hand against the Lord’s anointed; but now please take the spear that is at his head and the jug of water, and let us go.”" Again, there is no doubt that Davids trust was completely in the Lord, and he says as much in verses 23-24. Twice Saul was an easy target and twice David refused to strike him down. We commend David, the man after Gods own heart, for his faith and trust in the Lord and for not taking matters into his own hands but recognizing his dependance on the Lord. But how many times do we sit in judgment on one another for not acting according to "common sense"? No one who trusts in the Lord is going to be disappointed. God will never say to anyone, "You just trusted in Me too much."

This is not to say that we don't need to obey the direct commands and instructions of Scripture, we do. But in regard to the Lords guidance in our lives and His provision for us we can trust in Him even if we don't understand what He is doing or how He is going to work everything out. We trust Him because of who He is. The Lord takes care of His own. Without faith it is impossible to please God, and the one who trusts in Him will not be disappointed.

Psalm 84:12 - "O Lord of hosts, how blessed is the man who trusts in Thee!"