November 16: Of Binary Questions, Futility and Trust

Ezekiel 33:1-34:31
Hebrews 13:1-25
Psalm 115:1-18
Proverbs 27:21-22

Heb:13:5-6 - Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you." So we say with confidence "The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?"

At our church, we've just concluded a series on "How to Be Rich" - not "how to get rich" but rather, in case one wakes up and finds themselves wealthy, how to be rich. And my take of the three sermons our pastor preached is that, at the core of it all, it comes down to a question: "Do I trust God or not?"

The more I reflect on that question, the more I come to believe and to realize it is a binary question, where there are two mutually exclusive answers. The answer is either a yes or a no; it cannot be a "yes, but..." or a "yes, when...". If it isn't an unequivocal yes, it is most definitely a no. At best, the only other thing one could say is "I don't know."

I am going to be honest. I do know. And for the most part, as I look back on my life, the answer has been a resounding "no". I've put my trust in money, in success, in hard work (the Martha Syndrome), in education and relationships and all these things besides God. And I've justified such thinking "carried away by all kinds of strange teachings" - like, "if God didn't want me to rely on money, He would not have created it" or some other such nonsense.

Here's the funny thing, though: if you are like me, when you put your trust in things other than God, you find yourself needing more and more of it. When I put my trust in money, I find I am always looking for more. When I put my trust in relationships, I find myself trying to build more and more of them. And when I put my trust in hard work, I find myself working increasingly, to the detriment of other aspects of my life. Putting my trust in these things I find I never have enough. One word comes to mind: "futility".

How sad is my embrace of such futility? Well, if my answer to the question above was an unstinting "yes", I would be under the care of One who "will make a covenant of peace and rid the land of savage beasts so that they may live in the wilderness and sleep in the forests in safety...I will send down showers in season; there will be showers of blessing. The trees will yield their fruit and the ground will yield its crops; the people will be secure in their land."

Call me crazy, but it didn't say anything about having to kill myself working just there...I pray we get to know Him, and lead lives that manifest a clear, unequivocal trust in our God.