8. TRUST AND LOVE: PARTNERS TOGETHER
We continue to repeat many of the same verses from Scripture as we work our way through this study. While this may be annoying to some, teachers know that repetition is a good teaching tool. But going over these verses is more than simply repeating. It is imprinting. The stamping, embedding, engraving, and etching of these verses into the core of our being is important. The Scriptures tell us that the Holy Spirit will bring back to our remembrance that which we have learned.[i] Certainly, there is no better time for Him to prompt us to hang onto God’s Word than when we are facing challenges or adversities and our trust in God is tested.
We know that love should be a crucial part of who a believer is. We are told to love God first of all and then to love our neighbour.[ii] Love is also who God is. God’s love becomes an important characteristic for us to remember, especially when faced with the inexplicable and the unimaginable challenges of life.
1 John 4:8 reminds us, “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” The context of this verse shows that love originates with God and that He demonstrated His love for us by sacrificing His own Son. Jesus’ death provided the means for our forgiveness and restoration. He took the punishment for sin that we deserved so that we would not have to bear it ourselves.
Scripture uses many images to help us understand who God is. In 1 John 1:5–9 we read: “This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. … If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. … If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”
Put these two qualities together: God is good (love), and God is holy (light). Both are lifelines for us to hold onto in times of stress and doubt.
Why are these two God qualities important for you to remember?
Every encounter with God deepens our knowledge of who He is and strengthens our trust in Him. Psalm 145:17 reminds us, “The Lord is righteous in all His ways and faithful in all He does.” Remembering God’s righteousness is essential for dispelling lingering doubts that might lead us to question whether He is truly good and holy. Righteousness, when describing a person or conduct, refers to being morally right, just, and virtuous. God—and all His actions—are good and excellent.
Though Scripture speaks often of God’s judgment on sin, we must understand that God is not eager to pour out that judgment. He is holy, and His justice must be upheld. In Ezekiel 33:11, God says, “Say to them, ‘As surely as I live,’ declares the Sovereign Lord, ‘I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, people of Israel?’”
We are continually faced with a choice: to trust and follow God, or to seek our own path through life and bear the consequences of that decision.
At the end of his life, Joshua challenged the people of Israel with this: “But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether it be the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”[iii]
God’s purpose for each of us is repentance, forgiveness, and the kind of spiritual growth that aligns us more and more with the character of Jesus. God’s love for us is shown again and again in the promises He has made about our salvation and our eternal home. The certainty that these promises will be fulfilled rests on who He is—His character as Almighty God, Creator of all, the One who has conquered death, hell, and Satan on our behalf. He is the One who never lies.
Jesus reminded His disciples of His eternal existence, His authority over all things, and His promise of their future well-being. Of all the blessings for which we should be grateful to Him, salvation is the greatest. Luke 10:18–20 says, “He [Jesus] replied, ‘I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overthrow all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you. However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.’”
Notice the parallels: “authority to trample…overthrow all the power…” means the same as “…spirits submit…” and “…nothing will harm you…” means the same as “…your names are written in heaven.” The important things are guaranteed.
Heaven was won for us on Calvary. The cross was the quintessential demonstration of His love for us. Romans 5:5-8 deserves to be memorized until it becomes the mantra that covers every part of our lives. In these verses, Paul addressed the sufferings that believers would face. He encouraged them to understand that these adversities would eventually produce the qualities of a righteous life. Then he adds, “…hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us. You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrated his own love for us in this: while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
What did Paul expect his audience to remember about God even during their times of deepest distress?
The phrase “while we were yet sinners” is profound. We, who were dead in our sins and without hope—utterly unworthy of any mercy from God—were freely given everything. Ephesians 2 describes what we once were and then gloriously proclaims: “But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.”[iv]
Resurrection is God’s specialty! Ezekiel 37 describes in vivid detail a vision the Lord gave to His prophet. Ezekiel is taken to a valley filled with dry bones, and there God instructs him to preach the word of the Lord over them. As he speaks, the bones begin to rattle and come together, attaching themselves to one another. Then God breathes life into those bones, and they rise up as a vast army of the Lord.
The vision ends with these prophetic words: “Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. I will put my Spirit in you, and you will live…”
What does this picture inspire you to say to the Lord?
This is the message of the Gospel: it proclaims God’s love and announces how sinful people can return to the relationship they were always meant to have with their Creator—the One who made the greatest sacrifice of all to make that return possible. This is the Gospel: dead bones coming back to life. And as each one is joined to the others and filled with the living Spirit of God, what was once lifeless becomes a mighty army of God’s messengers.
Paul stood before Agrippa, trying to convince the king of his need to repent and return to God. He told his own story of renewal and, in describing God’s call on his life, wove the Gospel message into his explanation of his role in God’s mission to a lost world: “I will rescue you from your own people and from the Gentiles. I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.”[v]
The Gospel is God’s love letter.
The Gospel is the story of darkness to light. Colossians 1:13, 14 reminds us, “For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”
Believers cannot be condemned. No one can stand before the court of heaven—or any other court, for that matter—and accuse us. The record of our offences has been wiped clean by the King’s pardon. Romans 8:33 assures us, “Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies.” And who stands beside us as our advocate, testifying that we have been declared no longer guilty? It is “Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—[who] is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.”
Sometimes our difficulty in trusting God comes from a distorted idea that we really aren’t forgiven at all—that it’s all just too good to be true. Satan, always the accuser and the one who plants doubts about God’s love, keeps poking and prodding until we no longer truly believe and no longer truly trust God to be as good as His Word.
Perhaps you’ve been at this point in your life—the point at which you doubted that salvation is truly yours, that the Gospel is true, that He really does love you that much, that God has forgiven you because of Christ. How has God reassured you that your salvation is secure in Christ—and that when He says you are forgiven, it really is true?
The new Israel—the body of Christ, made up of all who have come to faith in Him—has been given some beautiful assurances in Scripture. Consider this one from Hebrews 8:10–12:
“This is the covenant I will establish with the people of Israel after that time [Old Testament], declares the Lord. I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will they teach their neighbours, or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.”
It is interesting—and certainly important to this discussion—to understand the link between the love of God and suffering. Our key verse from Romans 8 strongly suggests that we will all go through challenging times, but despite that, nothing can separate us from the love of God, no matter how difficult those times might be.
Romans 8:15–18 also develops this theme:
“The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, ‘Abba, Father.’ The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings, in order that we may also share in his glory. I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.”
The believer, confident in the love of the God who guarantees his or her future, has nothing to fear, whatever may come. Jesus reminded His followers that they were not to fear anything that could harm the body, but only that which could harm the soul.[vi] Because of Calvary, our souls are safe in His loving hands..
These statements remind us to look beyond the temporal toward the eternal, that while we live in the here-and-now, this place is only a temporary stop in the journey. How can that thought affect how you look at the experiences of life?
As our experience of God’s love for us grows, it must show itself in how we love others. Scripture tells us to “put on” that love as we would put on clean clothes each day. Notice how Colossians 3:12 begins: we can only “put on” what we have been given. To be fully clothed with these God-like qualities, we must embrace who we are in Christ. We are “God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved.”
Because of who we are in Christ—and because of the security we enjoy as beloved children of a gracious heavenly Father—we can confidently open ourselves to Him and allow Him to do what He desires in our lives: to clothe us “with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.”
Paul goes on to remind us that fully embracing God’s love gives us what we need to “bear with each other and forgive one another…forgive as the Lord forgave you.” Because of this, we can love as God loves.
How would you finish this sentence. Fully trusting God with my eternal soul means that I can fully trust Him with…
God Himself rejoices as we grow in our trust. Have you ever imagined Him singing over you? The prophet Zephaniah tells us this is exactly what God does. Zephaniah 3:17 says, “The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.”
What kind of emotions does such a statement provoke in you?
And to encourage us even more, here is Psalm 103:11: “For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His love for those who fear Him…”
How much love do you think that represents?
Perhaps these seem like foolish questions to ask, but they do cause us to pause and consider just how deep God’s love for us truly is. As the familiar verses of Romans 8:37–39 remind us, nothing can separate us from the love that God has for us.
In John 15:10, we are reminded to “remain” in His love. We do this by obeying Him and by reminding ourselves each day how deeply we are loved. As we focus on who He is and all He has done to demonstrate His love for us, our confidence in Him grows, strengthening our trust when the inexplicable and unexpected happen.
God has given Jesus authority over everything. He is the head of the church—that’s us. We are pictured as His body, over which He is the Head.[vii] Paul compared the spiritual disciplines of the believer to the physical disciplines of bringing his body under control in order to win a race.[viii] In the same way, Jesus, as Head of the body, disciplines that body so it can function at its best. Just as we love our bodies and do our best to keep them safe and healthy (I hope), so Jesus—who loves us with an eternal love—does the same for us. Paul says he beats his body into submission, and sometimes Jesus must do that for us as well!
The prophet Isaiah offers wonderful words of comfort as we seek to understand how deeply God loves us. In Isaiah 40:10–11, he writes:
“See, the Sovereign Lord comes with power, and he rules with a mighty arm. See, his reward is with him, and his recompense accompanies him. He tends his flock like a shepherd: he gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.”
He doesn’t punish or pressure the weak and vulnerable—He carries them. To His enemies He is fierce,[ix] but to His own He is gentle. Isaiah continues in 42:3: “He will not shout or cry out or raise His voice in the streets. A bruised reed He will not break, and a smouldering wick He will not snuff out.” Love certainly doesn’t get much better than that!
How should we live in light of how greatly we are loved? Second Corinthians 5:7 offers the answer as simply as possible: “For we live by faith, not by sight.” Living in trust is how we respond to God’s love.
How essential is living by faith? Very. Hebrews 11, which recounts the lives of those who lived by faith, reminds us: “…without faith it is impossible to please God…” Faith does not rest on what we can prove. Rather, as Hebrews 11 also explains, it is “…confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.”
In all the examples given to us in this well-known faith chapter, we see that faith is always tested, and that the confidence we place in a sovereign God does not always produce the outcomes our human nature most desires. In the final verses of the chapter, we read about those who experienced great victories by faith, but we also read about those who suffered terribly despite that same faith:
“There were others who were tortured, refusing to be released so that they might gain an even better resurrection. Some faced jeers and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were put to death by stoning; they were sawn in two; they were killed by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted, and mistreated—the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, living in caves and in holes in the ground. These were all commended for their faith…”
Here is an important thought. Whether they enjoyed a relatively trouble-free life or faced endless adversity did not depend on the quality of their faith, but on God’s design for their lives. They were ALL commended for their faith. But faith, whether strong or weak, does not guarantee freedom from adversity. We must understand that even when the results seem most favourable—and we rightly rejoice in them—none of us, just like these heroes of the faith, have yet “received what had been promised, since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.” The best is yet to come for all of us, regardless of the smoothness or roughness of our life experiences. In the meantime, we are to live as people of faith—people who trust God whether the results seem favourable or not.
Read Hebrews 11. The list is not exhaustive, but what impresses you most about those who are on this list of heroes of the faith?
Just how do we live by faith?
We learn from the example of David, who often had to exercise trust in God under the most difficult circumstances. In Psalm 31:22 he cried out, “In my alarm I said, ‘I am cut off from your sight!’” How often have we wrestled with that same worry—God doesn’t see this, or Where is God in that? Yet our declaration of faith in God should end the way David’s cry of anguish ends: “Yet you heard my cry for mercy when I called to you for help.” Faith insists that even when I don’t see God or sense him in a particular situation, I still cry out to him because he is there.
This echoes the prophet’s cry as he expresses the anguish of God’s people in the face of impending disaster: “But Zion said, ‘The Lord has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me.’” The prophet then answers with God’s solemn promise: “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you. See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me.”[x]
Even when under His hand of discipline God does not abandon His own.
Perhaps the most wonderful of expressions of this is found in Lamentations 3:1-26.
Read this passage from Lamentations carefully. In what ways do you relate to the prophet’s description? What gives the prophet hope? In what ways do you relate to his expression of confidence in God?
These final verses were written in the midst of terrible suffering. The prophet Jeremiah was treated cruelly for speaking the message God had given him. In the end, he was dragged off to Egypt against his will and, as far as we know, died there. Yet he could still say:
“Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, ‘The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.’ The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.”
Reflect on Jeremiah’s words. Wherever you are in your journey of trusting the Lord, pray these words of Scripture back to Him, asking that they become more and more a reality in your life each day.
Living out our confidence in God includes how we respond to His discipline in our lives. As hard as it is to be under His disciplining hand, its presence is actually a reason to praise Him. When God disciplines us, it proves that we are truly His children and shows how highly He values us.
Hebrews 12:5–6 reminds us: “And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son? It says, ‘My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, because the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.’”
The spirit of our age is to avoid any kind of rebuke or discipline of our children out of fear of harming them physically or emotionally. While corporal punishment can be taken to an extreme, we must also remember the value of doing what is necessary to protect our children from the far greater danger of never learning right from wrong, or of coming to believe that there are no consequences for bad choices. Properly applied discipline, as God’s always is, is a sign of a parent’s love and that parent’s desire to help their children become the best people they can be.
The passage in Hebrews continues: “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.” This is followed by what might be called a “pull-up-your-socks-and-get-with-the-program” moment. The writer adds, “Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees.”
God doesn’t take some kind of sadistic pleasure from the adversities or the disciplines He brings our way. That’s not the nature of the One who loves us most and best. Believing that He acts in love must become for us a matter of trust. Lamentations 3:32-33 reminds us: “For no one is cast off by the Lord for ever. Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love. For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to anyone.”
For the believer, embracing God’s discipline becomes an expression of our trust in the One who administers it solely out of His fatherly concern and love.
The writer to the Hebrews closes his letter with a benediction that expresses his commitment to, and his hope in, the efficacy of God’s disciplines. He writes: “Now may the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.”[xi]
Notice the reference to Jesus as the Shepherd, reminiscent of passages such as Psalm 23 and John 10. He cares for His flock as no other shepherd can. He carries the weakest and most vulnerable in His arms, leads them to green pastures and still waters, protects them from danger, and guarantees a bright future. He gives His life for the life of His sheep. Just as He has demonstrated His faithfulness in the past, He will provide everything needed for His children to do His will today and tomorrow. He will carefully and graciously work in those who are His, to please the Father and bring Him glory.
Living out our confidence in Him calls us to surrender to His will and His work in our lives, knowing that, as our Shepherd, He always acts in the best interests of His flock.
Read Psalm 23 and John 10. For you, what are the most significant aspects of Christ’s shepherdly care for you?
In the end, the living out of our faith will result in our lives being described as God once described Job's: “Have you considered my servant Job? There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.”[xii]
Psalm 32:10 beautifully assures us of this, “…the Lord’s unfailing love surrounds the one who trusts in him.” “Unfailing love” reflects the sovereignty of God, His utter, complete and benevolent control over everything that touches our lives. There will be times when our world will be rocked, but we are sheltered by the eternal Rock. He guarantees the best result in the end, as well as the resources to sustain us during those challenging times. Isaiah 54:10 expresses it this way: “‘Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken nor my covenant of peace be removed,’ says the Lord, who has compassion on you.”
Can you describe a time when fear threatened to snatch away your confidence in a God Who can be trusted? How were you pulled back to a position of trust?
Living in trust also requires us to live in the Word. Psalm 119:11, a well-known verse, reminds us, “I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.”
Remember the incident in the life of Jesus just after His baptism.[xiii] He was led into the desert by the Spirit to be tempted by Satan. Faith must be tested, even the faith of Jesus, who was tempted just as we are, yet never yielded to temptation. You will recall that Jesus was tempted three times during this wilderness experience. Each time, He responded to Satan by quoting an appropriate Scripture.
The Word of God is described in Ephesians 6:16 as “the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.” Jesus used the Word of God to deflect the arrows the tempter directed at Him.
One of the roles of the Holy Spirit in our lives is to remind us of what Jesus has told us through His Word.[xiv] Whatever we “hide” of those promises in our hearts, He will bring back to us as a reminder of God’s faithfulness and love, and as a shield we can use to protect us when we are tempted.
In the midst of life’s most challenging moments, we often can do little more than cry out in our pain. We are so mentally, emotionally, and physically drained that we can’t function normally. If we build Scripture into our relationship with the Lord during the quieter seasons of life, when adversity is not so acute, we store up the resources we will need when we simply don’t have the strength to go searching for them. We hide God’s Word in our hearts so that when those hearts are broken, the Spirit of God can pour the oil of healing on them as He brings to mind what we tucked away in better times.
Consider the following:
Isaiah 41:13, 14—“‘For I am the Lord your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you. Do not be afraid, you worm Jacob, little Israel, do not fear, for I myself will help you,’ declares the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.”
Isaiah 43:1, 2—“But now, this is what the Lord says—he who created you, Jacob, he who formed you, Israel: ‘Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Saviour…’”
God does not promise that we will be spared difficulties. In fact, He tells us that we will face them. The assurance that these trials are held within His divine and steady hand brings us great comfort. We pair that assurance with the knowledge that He goes with us and that, ultimately, nothing of true significance can harm us.
When Jesus slept in the boat while His disciples struggled against the wind and waves and feared for their lives, they seemed to have forgotten a critical truth: God was in the boat with them. As He soon proved, He was the Master of the very winds and waves that were causing them such trouble.[xv] At the end of this adventure, He asked them a searching question: “Where is your faith?”
Living by faith means trusting Him in the contrary winds and the heaving waves, refusing to be ruled by fear, and remembering that God is both in the boat and in the storm.
The faith we demonstrate in our daily lives is meant to influence those who share life with us, as well as those who simply observe how we live. Paul reminds us that God is with us in both the good and the bad. When we show our trust in a God who holds both our joys and our struggles—and us—in the palm of His hand, we open a way to minister to others. We respond to His love by sharing our ongoing journey of trust with those around us.
2 Corinthians 1:3-6 tells us, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds in Christ. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer.”
Whenever I read these verses, I am reminded of a missionary colleague who served with her husband in India. They were expecting their first children—triplets! Because of the rudimentary health care in their area, the normal checks and balances we would expect during pregnancy were not practiced. The babies were born full term and perfectly formed, but died shortly afterward. A simple blood transfusion would have saved them, but no one had realized that my friend was Rh-negative and that such a transfusion would be necessary.
Years later, I asked her what she had taken from that terrible tragedy. She told me that what she and her husband had suffered through that experience had enabled her to comfort others who had lost children, with the same comfort she herself had received from the Lord. Her suffering had an eternal purpose. I am certain that such a conclusion was not easily reached in the moment, but the truth of it became something they could use in their ministry to others later.
Paul, once called Saul, had been the archenemy of the early church. He knew persecution from both sides—first as a persecutor and then as the persecuted. Acts 9 describes Paul’s encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus. He was on his way to that city, fully intending to identify followers of the Way and drag them off to prison, or worse. After his encounter with Jesus and his conversion, he himself would be persecuted, eventually going to his death. He recognized that his experiences enabled him to be of great help to others who were being persecuted. They perhaps even allowed him to speak a pointed word to those who were now doing the persecuting.
Jesus was persecuted—even to death. Can we expect anything less than what our Lord suffered? When we remember what Paul tells us in Romans 8:39, we understand that God’s purpose for us is to conform us to the image of His Son, our Saviour. Suffering may be part of that process for any of us. A living faith may also be a faith that suffers well.
Living out our trust in God is no easy matter. God understands who we are, what we are, and how frail the faith we profess can sometimes be. In Mark 9, Jesus encounters a man whose son is described as having an evil spirit. The father, beside himself with concern, asks the Lord to help his son, if He can. Jesus responds: “‘If you can?’ said Jesus. ‘Everything is possible for one who believes.’” Aware of the weakness of his faith but desperate to believe and to see his son healed, the father blurts out this classic answer: “Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, ‘I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!’” It is not the strength of our faith that counts; it is the One in whom we rest the faith we have that makes the difference. Jesus, ever merciful, responds even to the smallest grain of trust.
Psalm 13 sums up the tension between what we often feel, and what we need to do as we put our trust in our great God. “How long, Lord? Will you forget me for ever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me…But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing the Lord’s praise for he has been good to me.”[xvi]
[i] John 14:26
[ii] Mark 12:30, 31
[iv] Ephesians 2:4, 5
[v] Acts 26: 17, 18
[vi] Matthew 10:28
[vii] Ephesians 1:22, 23
[viii] 1 Corinthians 9:24-27
[ix] Matthew 3:12
[x] Isaiah 49:14-16
[xi] Hebrews 13:20, 21
[xv] Luke 8:22-25
[xvi] Psalm 13:1, 2, 5, 6
(From A Question of Trust, © Lynda Schultz, 2021, ISBN: 979-8-7420-5863-2)
