Does our Lord trust us? How could He? He tells us not to trust ourselves (Proverbs 3:5-7). For our own sake He urges us not to trust in our own knowledge, strength, relationships, or accomplishments. Nor are we to trust in one another (Psalm 118:8).
Our confidence is to be in Him alone.
Yet there is another side of the coin. The Scriptures make it clear that while God does not want us to trust ourselves, He does want us to entrust ourselves to one another as an expression of our confidence in Him (Proverbs 24:6; 2 Timothy 2:2; 1 Corinthians 12:13-27).
Even more important is what God Himself entrusts to us. He gives students to teachers, citizens to presidents, children to parents, church members to pastors, and workers to employers. He entrusts wives to husbands, neighbors to neighbors, and friends to friends.
Yet there is more. He has also given the earth to man, the gospel to His church, and His own name to all who have accepted His Son as their own personal Savior.
Together the gifts of God reflect the extent of our stewardship (1 Corinthians 4:1-2; Luke 19:11-27). Stewardship is the responsibility of caring for that which belongs to another. Such oversight is what the Bible has in view when it tells us about the gifts God has given to His people to be used for His honor. As a rule we think of these gifts as the good things God gives: money, abilities, life, time, health, relationships. These good gifts we know are entrusted to His people to be used for His purposes (James 1:5-20).
Yet there is more that God gives us. He also entrusts His people with pain and disappointment. In difficult and troublesome times our Lord places in our care the kind of loss that gives us another way to show His supernatural presence in our lives.
The uncomfortable truth is that while good circumstances can be received and enjoyed to the honor of God, it is more likely that God’s grace will be noticed in those who trust Him in the middle of disappointment and hardship (2 Corinthians 4:7-11).
The apostle Paul would not have had a chance to make such a powerful statement with his life if he had been entrusted with only rich and comfortable circumstances. But because he followed Christ not only in moments of material affluence but also in many kinds of suffering and personal hardship, his losses help us define the potential of well-grounded faith and love. When we read of Paul’s willingness to endure separation from family and friends, shipwreck, stonings, beatings, and repeated whippings with thirty-nine lashes, we can be sure that he was not in the ministry for self-serving reasons. On many occasions he suffered a lack of clothing, food, strength, and health. On a daily basis he bore concern over the spiritual well-being of the people and churches he loved (2 Corinthians 4:7-12; 11:23-33).
Paul was entrusted with all of this pain. Through many difficulties, he showed his faith in the resurrected Christ. Through his weakness, and the resulting experience of the strength of God, every succeeding generation has been spiritually enriched (Philippians 4:11-13).
So too, Job was entrusted with pain and loss. Sarah and Hannah were given the tears of childlessness. Then there was Joseph. From a pit in Israel to a prison in Egypt, he used false accusations and imprisonment to show the world that God is in the shadows even in the darkest moments of our lives.
Does God trust us with such pain? No. He knows our inclinations. He knows that left to ourselves we would be unprofitable servants. Allowed to go our own way we are apt to let our disappointments result in bitterness and prayerlessness. Yet with a promise to never leave us, He entrusts us with challenges that give us a chance to trust Him in our tears as well as in our laughter.
Never can we bear the weight of what has been entrusted to us in our own strength. When we try, we crumble in defeat. Only by throwing ourselves on Him and only by trusting in His mercy and ability to save can we see the worst mistakes and problems turned around for the honor of God and for the good of all who come in contact with us.
Father, thank You for entrusting to us what only You by Your Spirit can protect. Please accept our willingness and yieldedness as an invitation to turn our disappointments as well as our good times into a lasting memorial to You.
