Timing and Trust

A.                 The Timing in Our Brokenness

The Lord employs two different means to break our outward man. One is gradual. The other is sudden. To some, the Lord gives a sudden breaking, followed by a gradual one. With others, the Lord arranges constant daily trials, until one day He brings about a large-scale breaking. If it is not the sudden first and then the gradual, then it is the gradual followed by the sudden. It would seem the Lord usually spends several years upon most of us before He can accomplish this work of breaking.

The timing is in His hand. We cannot shorten the time, though we certainly can prolong it. In some lives, the Lord is able to accomplish this work after a few years of dealing. In others, it is evident that after ten or twenty years, the work is still unfinished. This kind of delay is most serious! Nothing is more grievous than wasting God’s time. How often the church is also hindered! We can preach by using our mind, and we can stir others by using our emotions. But if we do not know how to use our spirit, the Spirit of God cannot touch people through us. This loss is so great. Should we needlessly prolong the time?

Therefore, if we have never wholly and intelligently consecrated ourselves to the Lord, let us do so now, saying: “Lord, for the future of the church, for the future of the gospel, for Thy way, and also for my own life, I offer myself without condition, without reservation, into Your hands. Lord, I delight to offer myself unto You; and I’m willing to let You have Your full way through me.”

 

Do you know what I find so necessary as I read this?  TRUST.  Look at the prayer that Watchman Nee offers up at the end of this passage, “I offer myself without condition, without reservation, into Your hands.  Lord, I delight to offer myself unto You; and I’m willing to let you have Your full way through me.”

How in the world do you expect to pray that ever so necessary prayer if you don’t trust Him? 

Now, please, it is not as if I don’t have some understanding of the difficulties of trusting in a God who is, for the most part, unseen, without audible voice, and a spirit.  I also understand that circumstances in life such as parents have an influence on the way that we see God.  The Father designed it so that our earthly fathers would be our earliest example of Him.  They do the best that they can, but in the end they are human just like we are.  They have weakness, sin, and struggle, and most of us have to struggle through some remnants of our views of our earthly daddies before we can really know our Heavenly Abba Father.

OK, so in all 119 words of my last paragraph, we have some crap to muddle through.  Trust is necessary.  How do you trust a God who you cannot see or audibly hear to the point that you can say, “I offer myself without condition, without reservation.”?  How do you trust a God when your first understanding of Him was set into place by an earthly father who left?  What about a dad who had an anger problem or, on the other side of that, was totally uninvolved with your life – caring more about business or computer games. 

Can I tell you something?  As I sit here, as I write, with all of the passion that (if you know me) I can muster – He wants to show you why you can trust Him.  I remind myself this morning, He is the best, most honorable, most loving, most wonderful person that I have ever known.  Let’s talk about why:

-When we still hated Him, He died for us.  When we were unworthy of trust, when we were His enemy, He gave His life to save us.

-He says in His Word, that, “For whoever would come near to God must [necessarily] believe that God exists and that He is the rewarder of those who earnestly and diligently seek Him [out].”

-Addressing fathers, He says, “If you then, evil as you are, know how to give good gifts [gifts that are to their advantage] to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask and continue to ask Him!”

 

I find trust is such a huge thing in our walk with God.  It is so necessary.  In my own life, I feel like it has been one of the greatest things that the enemy of my soul has tried to assault in my relationship with Christ.  Abraham trusted His voice even when it commanded him to sacrifice that which was most precious to him.  Noah trusted the Father’s voice even when it told him to build something that everyone called him crazy for.  Joshua trusted His voice, even when it lead him into battle against enemies who were 9 foot tall.  The disciples followed His voice and His commands even when they knew that it would mean their lives.

Their trust led to Abraham securing the covenant, Noah saving his family, Israel securing the promised land, and the Gospel being spread throughout the world.

I end this post with a question for you – seeing as those men were ordinary and (in most cases) uneducated, realizing that through the commitment of their lives into God’s hands they changed the course of their nation and world…

What can your God do through you if you will but trust Him, offer yourself unto Him, and be willing to let Him have His full way through you?

Mr. Hill