TRUST IN THE LORD!

TRUST does not grow overnight.      It takes time, often a LOT of time.   And thus PATIENCE is also needed to reap a harvest from it.     I remember when we got to the place of putting up the first double story tuition block for Testimony School, the Administrative Office and Assembly Hall.    All these buildings wee designed to stand on land then occupied by a grove of Blue Gum Trees; many of them a hundred years old, and as many feet in height.      The site had to be cleared before we could build - one by one those tall stately, long standing, trees were brought down - all in less than thirty minutes.  SO EASY to destroy TRUST, so difficult to replace it quickly!   ONE OF THE BIGGEST CHALLENGES FOR US has been waiting for trust to be received and accepted between ourselves and the children the Lord often brings to us.    There are occasions where a child comes as a baby or infant, and a relationship immediately begins, and without either of us noticing 'trust' between us is set in motion.      But there are also those who come older, with many years behind them.     They come into our care, the care of strangers, with reservation and often suspicion.

AND, of course,  we also may have our own reservations about them!      Then there is a third scenario, where a child having grown up with us for some time is found to have unexpectedly lied, cheated, even spurned the trust given to him or her.        NOT easy to put that failure or rejection aside as if it did not happen.........Back to square one all over again.     It is a set back demanding even more faith than before.   And it can also work the other way - ON OF US may fall short of a child's expectation so that they back off, and their own trust damaged.      It may not be repaired over-night, but will take time to heal - time to grow again.         During such times, Love will be given opportunity to flourish;  mercy, forgiveness and PATIENCE to be demonstrated and revealed.   We may not be able to 'hurry' things along.     Children are not like sticks of rhubarb under glass being 'forced' to speed up their development at the pleasure of the 'gardener'.   Neither are adults.     DEATH comes suddenly to us but CHANGE takes time to actually happen.      Trust is the same.    It must be built, waited for, and   carefully maintained.

THUS for us every incoming child is a challenge - will we be able to build trust between us?

Perhaps I should then go on to ask the Question - 'How many people trust ME - or even YOU?'

Or again 'Who do I trust?'         It is amazing how, when  friends lets us down, those that we counted on, we immediately change in our attitude towards them.        There is a kind 'blame game' factor that many of us suffer from.     Even some of our children 'blame' their parents for dying - 'WHY did my parents die and make me an orphan?'      And then. perhaps, they may begin to blame GOD for letting it all happen........    Can we really trust GOD?       Ah, now THERE is a question.      Indeed if I may NOT trust in God then I am left with nothing to trust in at all - I am of all people in deep despair, hopeless, with nothing and no one to hang on to.       IF we could safely DEBUNK the whole idea of God then we might ALL find ourselves individually alone, and totally despondent.    I can see the Enemy of Mankind rubbing his hands with glee at the thought of it - surely this is what he ever works towards.   He loves to sow doubt and discord; loves to question God's veracity.    He can often use a death to do this.   'IF God is there and loves you, surely, He would not have broken your heart and taken that loved one away?'       The Enemy loves to chip away at TRUST in God.    And really at times I feel there is that of the Enemy in all of us - even the Christian - that Satan awakes to question us in a way that will destroy trust - in each other - AND in God.     It is when we yield to this that life opens the door to despair and misery of heart and soul.

This week I was reading again Psalm 4.    I read it first in the King James Bible, and later again in the Amplified Translation of the Bible.      I will print it here - maybe with a comment / maybe not - it is really, for me, a Psalm of great Encouragement.     I will use the Amplified Bible Translation.

LORD, how they are increased who trouble me!  Many are they who rise up against me.

Many are saying of me.  There is no help for him in God.    Selah (pause and calmly thing of that!)

But You, O Lord, are a shield for me, my glory, and the lifter up of my head.

With my voice I cry to the Lord, and He hears and answers me out of His holy hill.  Selah (pause and calmly thing of that!)

I lay down and slept;   I wakened again, for the Lord sustains me.

I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people who have set themselves against me round about.

ARISE, O Lord; save me, O my God!   For You have struck all my enemies on the cheek:  You have broken the teeth of the ungodly.

Salvation  belongs to the Lord, May Your blessings be upon Your people.  Selah (pause and calmly thing of THAT!)

I suppose I have read this Psalm dozens of times, but on this occasion I felt especially blessed and refreshed by it.     There is such sure Assurance and Certainty in it about GOD.    No matter how great our enemies might be, or how weak and unable we and others might feel we are to confront them, YET GOD is our shield - He will lift us up victorious.      Calmly consider this - There IS nothing and no one God will not save and deliver us from.
HE hears and answers my cry for help - always.  Calmly think about that - He attends day and night to our words.
I can sleep KNOWING that I will awake because HE will sustain me as I trust in Him.
I need never be afraid of being overwhelmed by those seeking my downfall - however many they may be - when I am trusting in God to be with me.
He WILL deliver me and save me!
His Blessing will ever be upon His people - those for whom Christ bled and died and ROSE again.
THE WRITER is David, and he is NOT theorising about some mythical god.    HE sings of the ONE he has FOUND to be REAL from his own experience and relationship;  The ONE TRUE GOD.    He is not singing about trite nothings, but he proclaims from his heart what he KNOWS to be TRUTH, and Truth enough to lift anyone listening up from the gloom of the miry pit.

It set ME up for the week.     A week of visitors, and business and many comings and goings.   A week of the humdrum and of the unexpected.    We week that played on our physical and emotional strengths and weaknesses.       A week that began without a penny in the Bank, leaving us hanging by a thread until Thursday when the Bank let us know that funds that had been sent more than a week before had now arrived.        Thus WE were relieved by the ONE who never fails, who had gathered of His love partners what was needed to sustain US, tucked away in Eldoret.     Thus we shall praise HIM, and extol His NAME.         If HE stretches my patience, and my trust, or permits a doubt to cross my carnal mind, YET will I never cease to TRUST in Him who IS my life and my Expectation.

God Bless YOU all, and carry you through the week ahead.  


John and Esther & Daryl and Carol (just now leaving for Australia)

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