Choose to Trust
Some words have big responsibilities. They convey important ideas and are characterized by very precise technical meanings. They mean as close to the same thing to everyone as you can imagine. A word like “believe” falls into this category. In response to a given truth claim or statement, you either believe it or not. Even in the presence of circumstances which may confuse the issue, you still know what it means to believe.
Here’s a simple example. A while ago, my daughter was driving an old used car. She wanted to go on a trip to a city about a thousand miles away. When I heard of her plans, being a conscientious father (or perhaps a meddling old man), I called her and expressed my lack of confidence in the vehicle to get her there and back without incident. I rattled her faith for a while. She weighed my concerns in with her desire to go and her confidence in the car. Though it was hard for her to decide, she eventually did. She chose to believe that the car would make it. The proof of her faith in it was her getting behind the wheel and heading out. The end of the story was that her faith was vindicated. She arrived safely home with the car still running as before (that means with vibrations and rattles and the construction glue holding the front bumper on still intact).
Other words have more fluid meanings. They can mean different things according to the circumstances. A word like “trust” falls into this category. Trust can convey the same idea as “believe” but it can also take the fork in the road of meaning toward hope. I might say “I trust the weather will clear by the weekend.” This is not a statement of confidence, but rather desire. The fact is all I’m doing is hoping the weather will clear.
There is a Greek word which is sometimes translated to believe, to trust or to put faith in. It has the kind of precision I referred to earlier. There is another Greek word which is less confident and more hopeful. (By the way, I’m not a Greek scholar, so I’m not going to try to give you the words. I'm sticking with the concepts, here.) You might think that this second word which is translated into English as both “hope” and “trust” might not be of a lot of use for the believer, but there are times when it is entirely appropriate.
We do need to choose to believe in the sense of accepting something as true and adapting our lives to fit with that decision. Believing the gospel is the easy example. Either you believe it and live accordingly, or you don’t. However, I’d argue that within the context of that unshakeable, life-changing faith, there is room for the other kind of trust - the hopeful kind.
As we live the life of faith, there are great, grand things of which we can be absolutely sure - particularly related to our position in Christ and our eternal welfare. The details of life, however, are a little different. We may have a strong impression that God wants us to do something and that He will make it possible, but we recognize our inability to discern exactly how God intends things to unfold, so we trust, not with ironclad confidence, but with hope.
Paul gives us several examples. To the Christians in both Rome and Corinth, he expressed this kind of hopeful trust that he would be able to visit them for a while, adding specifically “if the Lord permits” when writing to the Corinthians. (See Romans 15:24 and 1Corinthians 16:7) To the Philippians, Paul wrote: “But I trust in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you shortly, that I also may be encouraged when I know your state” (Philippians 2:19). Here again, he expresses his intentions, but recognizing that he was not absolutely sure of their implementation.
We might think that this kind of hopeful trust is appropriate only regarding things like travel plans, but make note of Paul’s use of the word “trust” in this passage from 2 Corinthians. It is the same word expressing hope and trust in equal measure as he speaks about God, “who delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver us; in whom we trust that He will still deliver us” (2 Corinthians 1:10 ). Here Paul looks at God’s physical deliverance in the past and present and expresses hopeful trust that He will still deliver him and his friends in the future, but in using the word he does, acknowledges that at some time, God will not deliver him physically, but will allow him to be killed. At that point, Paul’s unshakable confidence in Jesus as his Saviour will be vindicated as he leaves his body to be present with the Lord.
What are the implications of this for us? I believe that
choosing to trust in the sense in which we have been talking has two
great advantages for the believer.
1) It saves us from making great presumptuous declarations about
things over which we have no control and no word from the Lord. I
sometimes hear such things regarding the physical healing of people, or
getting a job, or buying a house, or other things over which we have no
right to make declarative statements.
2) It allows us to move forward with flexibility. We seek the mind
of God, hopefully trust that we have found it, make plans and implement
them, and rest in the fact that if we misread God’s intentions for us,
our weakness will not compromise His sovereign will. Things may not
turn out as we hoped or as we wanted, but ultimately, they will turn
out for our best.
As we choose to trust, we do so recognizing that God has a great purpose in all things. We have a part in bringing that to pass. We do not know specifically how God will use us to do that, but we walk close to Him, seek to discern His will for us, and when we have done that trust Him to use us to accomplish His purposes.
Ron Hughes
© June 2009
