Replacing Suspicion with Trust
I’ve spent much of my life waiting for the things I prayed to God for. Many of my friends met their husbands in college, while I spent most of my college years- and about seven years after college- praying that God would bring me my husband until I met Justin at 29.
Many of my friends started their careers after their college graduation, while I ultimately went back to school and spent several years praying for God to bring me a good job before I ended up in my dream position.
So when my husband and I were ready to start trying to have a family, I prayed that God would bless us with children AND I prayed that He wouldn’t make us wait too terribly long. I was already 32. I felt like I didn’t have a lot of time to spend waiting for this one.
At the beginning of that journey, I was hopeful. God had brought me through so much, I felt certain He wouldn’t put me through the ringer again. After a few months went by, I continued to remind myself that it takes most people multiple tries before they get pregnant. After a few more months, I started to worry that yet again, God was going to ask me to wait a while before answering this prayer.
But ten months in, when that pregnancy test said positive, I thought finally He was going to protect me from that anguish again. He was going to allow us to grow our family without the agony of an incredibly long wait.
So when I suffered a miscarriage a week later, something in my heart turned. It felt like a cruel joke. Like God was toying with me. Like He had dangled my heart’s greatest desire in front of my face and then snatched it away as I started to reach for it. It most certainly did not feel like something a good and loving God would do.
The longer we walked down the path of infertility, after experiencing that loss, the more suspicious of God I became. So many of my prayers rang with this sentiment:
“You’re God. You’re all-powerful. You can literally do anything. What I’m asking for is good. You’re the One who put this desire in my heart. Why are You doing this to me? I’m begging You! Please give us a child!”
And then He didn’t.
Month after month.
Treatment after treatment.
And while He was just asking me to wait, for a long time I didn’t see it that way. I saw it as punishment. I saw it as spite. I saw it as just plain mean. Because I couldn’t imagine a situation where God could determine that not making me a mom was for my good.
Now that right there is why I’m not God. I don’t have the capacity to see all the ways a situation could work itself out, and then determine which one is the best for my creation. My narrow view of the world just sees what I want and as long as it’s a good thing to want, I can’t see why God would possibly say No or Not yet.
So when we’re faced with these moments where God is withholding something from us and we don’t understand why, we have to dig deep into His Word and root ourselves in trust. Otherwise, the devil will let our suspicion take hold and eat our faith alive.
The first time “trust” is mentioned in Scripture is in Judges, soon after the judge Gideon has passed away. God had yet to establish a new judge, so one of Gideon’s sons, Abimelek, decides to take matters into his own hands and convinces his clan to follow him as their ruler. Then, just to ensure his position, he murders all 70 of his brothers.
One brother, Jotham, escapes this fate, and as the people are gathering to crown Abimelek king, he climbs up a mountain and tells a parable to warn the people against doing this.
In his parable, the trees want to anoint a king, so they go around asking different trees to be their ruler. The olive tree declines, not wanting to give up his oil. So does the fig tree, not wanting to give up his fruit, and the vine, not wanting to give up his wine.
However, the thornbush is willing to take the position.
Throughout Scripture, thorns are a negative symbol. They plague the ground that man is sentenced to toil over in order to eat, as his punishment for his sin in the Garden of Eden. It is frequently used as a metaphor to explain things that pain humans, such as the enemies of the Israelites or the thorn in the side of Paul. And a crown of them is used to hurt and humiliate Jesus as He heads to his crucifixion. So my guess is, the trees in this parable do not want a thornbush as their king.
Here’s how the thornbush responds to the trees’ invitation to be their king: “If you really want to anoint me king over you, come and take refuge in my shade; but if not, then let fire come out of the thornbush and consume the cedars of Lebanon!” (Judges 9:15 NIV).
The King James Version translates “take refuge” as “put trust in.” So the thornbush is putting the onus on the trees- it’s up to them if they want to trust in him as their king. It all seems so innocent and humble, doesn’t it?
Now I’m no arborist. My husband is the one with the forestry degree. But in Matthew 13, Jesus tells a parable that shows what will happen if these trees trust in the shade of the thornbush. Jesus’s parable is about a farmer scattering seeds, which fall in a variety of places. One of those places is among thorns, and the plants that tried to grow from those seeds ended up choked by the thorns. So if these trees choose to plant themselves in the shade of the thornbush, they will ultimately be choked by the bush and die. Which is ironic, since the thornbush tells them if they don’t find trust in his shade, they’ll be consumed by fire from him. So either way, their fate is not looking good.
Jotham uses his parable to let the people know that this is what will happen to them if they trust in Abimelek as their king, but they choose to ignore him and crown Abimelek anyway. Jotham flees for his life, Abimelek rules for three years, and then a rebellion ultimately leads to his death.
The Hebrew for “put trust in” is defined as “seek refuge, flee for protection, confide hope in.” This word can be used to indicate that trust has been put in God, but we can see in this first mention that that is not always the case. So let’s look at the first time it’s used to indicate putting trust in God.
I love that this time, the passage comes from Ruth. We were in Ruth last week to discuss hope, and as we see in this definition, “hope” and “trust” are closely related. We’re even going to pick up in the story where we left off at the end of Chapter 1.
As I summarized last week, in the beginning of Chapter 2 we learn that Naomi has a family member in Bethlehem named Boaz. Since Naomi and Ruth don’t have much to their names as widows, Naomi sends Ruth out to glean in the fields- this means she will follow behind women as the harvest and pick up anything they drop or miss. And it turns out on her first day out, she ends up gleaning in Boaz’s field.
Boaz’s attention is immediately caught by her, and after finding out who she is, tells Ruth she should always glean in his fields. She asks what she has done to curry his favor, and he tells her he has heard all the wonderful things she’s done for his family, Naomi. Then he prays over her, “May the Lord repay you for what you have done. May you be richly rewarded by the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge” (Ruth 2:12 NIV).
Again, “take refuge” here is translated as “come to trust” in the KJV. If you remember from last week, Ruth was a Moabite, a nation that had many gods and did not worship God. But when she chose to follow Naomi to Bethlehem, she also chose to follow her God. Boaz recognizes this and prays that God will bless her because she has chosen to trust Him.
The chapter ends with Ruth returning to Naomi and telling her whose field she was gleaning in. Naomi identifies Boaz as their kinsman redeemer, so Ruth continues to return to his fields.
So much is happening here, guys! This word indicates that Ruth has sought refuge, fled for protection, and confided hope in God. Based on the circumstances that led her to Boaz’s field, these descriptions are quite literal for her! The life of a widow in this time was very precarious, and could go very poorly if hope was put in the wrong person. But Ruth put her trust in God, and it led her to the doorstep of the very person she needed: a kinsman redeemer.
The role of a kinsman redeemer was to marry a widow in order that she might bear children. Typically this role fell to the brother of her husband so that the children would still be of the husband’s bloodline, but this role would pass to another family member if there was no brother to take on the responsibility. This is how Boaz ends up as Ruth’s kinsman redeemer.
What I also love about this is the imagery of taking refuge under the wing of God. Psalm 36:7 says, “How priceless is your unfailing love, O God! People take refuge in the shadow of your wings” (NIV). The Hebrew word used here for “wing” can mean “the extremity or edge of a bird or army” and in both Ruth and this verse it also means God is “protector of his people.” When we trust in God, we have His entire army as our protection! And it is available to anyone who would seek it, even Ruth the Moabite.
The last thing I want to note is the repeated imagery of a shadow that we saw in Judges with the thornbush. Depending on whose shadow we seek for protection, we can either find destruction (being choked by the thorns) or safety (the wing of God). So who are we going to place our trust in? Whose shadow are we going to seek when the heat of pressure from our struggles and losses becomes too much?
Trust doesn’t become any easier when our Rainbows get earthside. Because now we have to trust God with the part of our heart that walks around outside of our body, and if there’s anything that’s going to fire up our anxieties, it’s that!
The devil’s lies can seep into our hearts, allowing our anxieties to fuel our suspicion of God’s intentions and the belief that He is intentionally hurting us or being cruel. But when we root out this suspicion and replace it with trust, we reclaim our joy, knowing that God has our best at heart when it comes to our hopes and dreams.
We can trust Him. Even when He says Wait. Even when He says Not yet. Even when we cannot possibly imagine how His plan can be good. Because we are not God and He is. He has the bird’s eye view needed to see how everything will fit together. So let Him be God and seek refuge in the shadow of His wings. He will carry you through.
Comments
Post a Comment