When I was growing up one of the TV shows my parents often would watch was one called “Who Do You Trust?”  It aired back in the late 1950’s for a brief time as a popular game show. The original host was Edgar Bergen but was later replaced by Johnny Carson.

Three couples would participate on the show.  The host would interview them and then pose a question to the man and then ask whether he trusted the woman to answer it accurately or whether he trusted himself to have the right answer.

Since the answer to the question was worth money and determined how long the couple would be able to play, it was crucial to think through who might be the one who knew the correct answer. This was made more difficult since the couples were not necessarily husband and wife.

It was fascinating to see the game unfold and how the person discerned who was the person who could be trusted to give the correct answer.

Even though it was simply a game, the truth is that the question seems to be far more commonplace today than it was when the show aired. Life seemed simpler back then or at least we believed it was. Hearing stories of deception would occur, but not at the speed of a text or a tweet.

Whether we are looking at labels in the grocery store or listening to ads on everything from cars and mortgages to cruise liners and automobiles and beyond, the flood of information often leaves us scratching our heads.  I often hear the sentence, “You don’t know who to trust!” and in many instances that is true.

Lack of responsibility, reliability, and truth telling has resulted in most of us learning from experience to check out competitors before choosing a product or service. We have learned to get “second opinions” before accepting the first diagnosis or recommendation from medical personnel.

All this doubt creeps into our spiritual lives as well when Christian leaders express opinions or thoughts that appear contradictory with our understanding of scripture or are exposed after being caught in an indiscretion.

The enemy uses this context mightily to his advantage and our detriment. He plants seeds of doubt about trustworthiness in the lives of some who have given us no reason to doubt them.

He can even cause us to doubt the Lord.

The prize is when he either convinces us we are totally trustworthy or totally untrustworthy in discerning the truth.

I think the key starting point is to look at the source of information, but even then, we may not have all the information needed to be certain.

This has all gotten worse in recent months and shows no signs of improving. Why?

You guessed it!  The political landscape of not only our nation, but every other on the earth as well. The result seems to include increasing conflict and division, fear and uncertainty, disheartenment and discouragement, and more.

Who do you trust?

Perhaps the message in all of this for those of us who are believers is to recognize that we are first and foremost citizens of another kingdom, a kingdom that supersedes all others past, present, and future.  The “head” of that kingdom possesses all knowledge and wisdom, all power and authority, and is absolutely trustworthy while totally outside of our control.

His story in the Bible shows how He uses every nation to bring about His purposes and often to call His people back to Him. That isn’t always pretty. It is often not easy.  Clearly His ways are often not ours and beyond our understanding.

The key question? 

Do I trust Him? 

As I have been considering this, my daily reading included Proverbs 16. The last verse of that chapter speaks volumes to this season of uncertainty.

In the ESV translation it reads as follows:

“The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.”  Proverbs 16:33 

Of course, we are not really using lots these days to make our decisions even though we know it was common in the stories in the Bible. That caused me to look at a modern rendering of the same verse.

“Make your motions and cast your votes, but God has the final say.” Proverbs 16:33 (MSG)

Does that mean we adopt a “que sera, sera” response?

I don’t think so. I think we are still called to pray, to seek the Lord’s direction, to learn what we are able to learn.

But in the end, the answer to the question, “Who do you trust?” is not about any person, male or female. The answer is whether or not I trust the One who knows everything including what may be secret or hidden from my view.

Who do I trust? 

Who do you trust?

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We seem to have become a success driven world. We may measure success by many different things depending on our culture or country but generally it will have a connection to productivity. If our goal is productivity with a little time to spare for play, it often leads to lists to guide our days. Some of us write down lists while others of us have lists in our heads that are no less nudging us.

Our values often will guide what shows up on our list. There can be things related to work and home, education and finances, exercise, and diet, and more. Without intending to do so, our lives can be guided by the tyranny of the list in other ways including what we believe our spiritual lives should include.

That latter category can include things like how often and when we attend services where we worship, what we do to serve, how much we read in our Bible, whether or not we memorize scripture, how much we actually study the Bible, and prayer lists of things we are asked to or believe we should pray for. None of that is necessarily bad but it can become somewhat mechanical, and we miss a key thing. Our spiritual lives are forged from a relationship with God and relationships never grow from a list of “to do” things.

Too often we make a list of how many chapters we should read per day or week, how many scriptures we need to memorize, and who we need to add to our prayer list, and we get busy and don’t think we can put those things in our day. So, we read a verse while we grab our coffee and pray as we go (if we remember).

Relationships grow from time spent together doing a variety of different things where we focus on just that one other person.

“For example, a husband and wife who only talk in snippets to one another throughout the day would have a shallow relationship. You’d be business partners, not lovers. You can’t build a relationship by sound bites.” Paul Miller

It can be easy to forget that Jesus had a dependent relationship with his Father.

Note how John writes:

“I can do nothing on my own.” (John 5:30)

He tells us to be like a child with God and demonstrated it over and over again.

Jesus trusted his Father, God, completely. We often struggle with that in our lives despite our faith. Maybe it can be explained in part because of the intimacy of the relationship He had with his “dad.” When Jesus withdrew in prayer it demonstrated a priority relationship.

Most of us know what a priority relationship is. It’s the person we want to spend time with and will make it happen on the busiest of days. We look for times to connect with them one-on-one whether on a walk, a favorite coffee shop, or anywhere at all. And those relationships grow as we get to know each other in dedicated times together.

Jesus understood that kind of focused attention. Look at how He was with people in his time on the earth.

“When Jesus is with someone, that person is the only person in the room. Jesus slows down and concentrates on one person at a time. The way he loves people is the identical to the way he prays to his Father.”

Paul Miller

That’s what He wants with you and me. He wants time to love us that way and it can’t happen if He is a “to do” list item, or in sound bites only throughout our day, or only while we grab coffee on our way out the door.

“You don’t create intimacy; you make time for it. This is true whether you are talking about your spouse, your friend, or God. You need space to be together. Efficiency, multitasking, and busyness all kill intimacy. In short, you can’t get to know God on the fly.”

Paul Miller

If a quiet time is merely something we squeeze in routinely or only make a part of our daily “to do” list, we are missing the best He wants for us. This God, this Jesus, wants an intimate relationship with you (with me) where we get to know his heart and we share ours with Him.

If you make time for other things or people, but not Him think what you are missing. Start intimate time with Him and you will discover how much you miss without it.

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Do you enjoy surprises?

I think there are some of us who very much like surprises. But a great many more of us appreciate our lives to be a bit more predictable. Those of us in the latter group like to have a sense of what to expect (at least broadly speaking) even if the surprise is a good thing.

Underneath that preference can sometimes be a need to feel like we have our little world a bit more under control. We anticipate things and then plan for them (both good and bad) and we hope that results in us being less rattled when the inevitable surprises do happen.

Another thing that influences that is what our personality type is. There are some who really prefer spontaneity and a “go with the flow” daily life. Others like schedules and thrive with them whether they are in our heads, our planners, or electronic devices. (There is a whole range in both types of personalities.) In our family we have a range of those who prefer schedules plus one who is the spontaneous type.

Now that our children are married with children of their own, it’s fun to see how that plays out in their adult lives and parenting and relational styles.

Expectations can definitely be challenging for any one of us because whatever the expectation may be, it is often not met or at least not met in the way we hope or prefer.

That results in some of us developing a pretty sour view of expectations and we refuse to hope or believe in a growing list of things and people.

Disappointed expectations for others result in adaptation to what happens as well as a growth in trust in the Lord and discernment of those who are trustworthy.

Have you considered how this plays out with the Lord?

One of the challenges I might suggest is to look carefully at what you see in whatever passages of the Bible you are currently reading. You will discover over and over again that what many of those we read about expected to happen turned out differently.

It seems we should be prepared to be surprised…not by God’s character, consistency, or constancy, but by how He chooses to display those as well as when He does so.

Maybe one of our problems is that our minds are finite and God’s is infinite! We cannot even imagine all the possibilities that He knows and creates.

It might also be true that we have a pesky problem of expecting the worst or at least not the best or what WE want.

Consider the examples you can think of in the Bible. Some are really big ones that no one can miss like the ram in the thicket that spared Abraham from offering Isaac on the altar or the Red Sea parting to allow the children of Israel to cross over walking on a dry seabed. Sarah and Hannah dealing with infertility and then God shows up and surprises them as well as their husbands with babies that have a major role in biblical history.

But surprises don’t end when we get to the New Testament. A virgin conceives and delivers the Messiah as a wee babe when anyone who had been looking for Him expected a king!

Reading through the Gospels we find one surprise after another. Jesus didn’t conform to what anyone expected and the religious of his day were not at all pleased. They lost control and a sense of power over people’s lives from this man from Nazareth.

The disciples were not those the elite would have chosen either. They were not highly educated and privileged people to serve at the side of the babe who would become a king. Over and over again Jesus confounded them even though these chosen 12 spent more time with Him than anyone else.

There were the big miracles like his resurrection and the feeding of the five thousand and the four thousand of course, but what about the fish with a coin in its mouth to pay taxes or how Jesus hung out with Samaritans and women whose reputations were less than stellar?

We may well enjoy reading those stories now, but I wonder how any of us would have reacted if we had been there when it was happening. How would we react as believers today if we were placed in situations that really made no sense or shocked us?

If we look at these stories more carefully, we will discover that Jesus was not only God and a miracle worker but also someone who paid attention to details about the people with whom He had contact. He knew their needs (spoken and unspoken) and moved in response to them.

How important it is that we don’t forget He is still the same today. Do we notice those little surprises and attention to details or do we miss them entirely or chalk them up to coincidence?

If we do those things, we will miss the faith-building amazing love of Jesus reaching out to us in more ways than we realize. How He responds and when may not be our choice, but He doesn’t fail to see our needs. Needs are what He promised to fulfill. He made no promises about “wants.” One dictionary definition of need is “a physiological or psychological requirement for the well-being of an organism.” It’s essential in order to live. That reminder reduces our list of what we think we need or want considerably.

On my last visit with my oldest friend, I savored every moment. She was 93 and her health was now failing. I had known her about 45 years and until recent months, she had been amazingly healthy in body, mind, and spirit.

It was evident in what would be the last time together that her body and mind were not what they had been, but also clear that her spirit and connection with her faith were unwavering.

I asked her what she had sensed from the Lord during this season. After pausing briefly she replied, “I won’t be disappointed.”

Here near the end of her life when it could have been easy to wonder what would happen in transition from this life to the next, Jesus had assured her that all her hopes in Him would not be disappointed.

How sweet this detail for my precious friend!

Hope in Him! 

He will undoubtedly surprise you, but He will not disappoint you. He sees the big picture that we cannot. He loves us beyond what we can imagine.

In “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers”, Legolas speaks to Gimli about the trees of Fangorn Forest waking up. How much our family loves this trilogy of movies!

I don’t live in Fangorn Forest and I am fairly certain our trees do not speak to each other, but at long last spring has steadily and slowly arrived and the trees indeed are waking up.

I love the word picture of trees awakening. It can be easy to see the trees as dead after autumn in the Midwest and other parts of the country that enjoy all four seasons. They are not dead at all, but only asleep, in a state of dormancy, conserving their resources. The Lord created them to temporarily stop growth, development, and physical activity to conserve energy. One of the reasons their leaves drop in the fall is so fewer parts of the tree need nourishment.

God has designed them so incredibly that they actually change their membranes on the surface areas so that water migrates from inside the cells to the spaces between the cells. This makes them more pliable. Then, as the trees convert starches to sugar in the fall, these sugars act in the same capacity as antifreeze, lowering the overall freezing point of the trees.

How marvelous are His works! What a Creator He is!

If He has so carefully designed the mechanisms of the trees to withstand the harsh winds and temperatures of winter, how could we ever be tempted to doubt His provision for us during the harsh seasons of our lives?

Everywhere we look, He reminds us that He has and is providing for us. We can look at the tree as provision for its beauty, its fruit, its shade, or its wood, but it often goes without notice of the provision for the tree in order for it to provide all of those things.

There is a truth there. His provision comes layer upon layer in intricate detail. That provision may seem scarce or non-existent even as the trees appear dead in winter, but the Lord has not forgotten.

The last few days I have been able to enjoy walks where the Lord has been drawing my eyes to the evidences of His creation being summoned to awaken. The steadily increasing warmth of the days and the lengthening hours of light are nudges to the trees to awaken even though an unseasonable few warm days early can fool the trees.

Light. How key it is to everything!

Trees and plants of all kind need light to be fruitful.

We, too, need light to bring us out of the darkness, to awaken us into life.

We need ongoing light for growth and fruitfulness.

We need the Light of the World!

I can only imagine what it will be like when the Light of the World returns and awakens this world!  Then we will truly behold Him and see the whole of what we cannot see now.

As the sun began to set, those who had followed the Lord could not let go of the events of the day. He had clearly told them, but what they had witnessed was beyond their imagination despite His words.

What would it have been like to be one of His disciples on that long, wrenching day at the end of such an incredible week?

I wonder.

Would I have steeled myself against the horror unfolding and clung to His words while still standing at the foot of the cross or would I have been one of those who were not present?

Would I have been overcome by grief and fear of what would happen next or would I have fallen prey to doubt?

So much had happened during this week…

The triumph of Palm Sunday had filled so many with hope and celebration! Then on Monday Jesus had entered the temple courts zealously overturning the tables of the moneychangers who were buying and selling. He was reminding them this place was to be a place of prayer and not one of robbers. A noisy melee broke out in the chaos of doves and money flying everywhere, people scrambling, and reeling at the scene. They had never seen Jesus this way.

Then on Tuesday as the disciples were walking along with Him, He had cursed the fig tree that was not producing fruit. How puzzled they seemed to be at how quickly the tree had withered before their very eyes! Once more He exhorted them if they had faith and believed as they prayed, what they prayed would be done.

How astonishing were those things the disciples witnessed, but now to think He was saying they could do such things was more than they could take in.

From there they went on to the temple courts that He had just cleared the day before and He was confronted by the chief priests and elders about where He had received authority to do what He had done. It was a trap they were setting for Him and He knew it. His wise answer rebuffed them and left them stymied as Jesus then refused to answer them and expose their unbelief. He tried to reach their hearts to the very end.

Then came the Olivet Discourse where He warned the disciples through another story. This time He spoke of the foolish and wise virgins charging them to keep watch. To think this admonition came prior to that long night in the Garden of Gethsemane and yet they had not taken in the meaning for either the future or the present.

How Jesus loved them and longed for His disciples to hear and understand!

I think He does for us as well. How can I possibly judge their behavior when I am not always listening and hesitating to follow if I don’t understand what He has asked of me?

It was on Wednesday that Judas slipped away from the others and made his bargain with the chief priests to betray Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. Did his fellow disciples have any clue he might be tempted to do such a thing?

It reminds me that in the “now” those I share the journey of faith with are also tempted even as I can be. How deeply and openly I share my doubts, fears, and temptations may well determine my ability or their ability to withstand it and make all the difference in this walk with Him. That means that I need to be purposeful in my times with those closest to me to help guard their hearts and allow them to guard mine as well.

Thursday was a feast day, the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and Jesus directed His disciples where to go in the city and whom to speak with about preparing a place at his house for Jesus and His disciples to celebrate the feast.

When they were gathered there, Jesus broke bread and served wine giving thanks and once more giving them information few could likely grasp. He plainly told them they would not share this meal with Him again until they were together again in His Father’s kingdom.

They sang a hymn and then left for the Mount of Olives to the garden in Gethsemane. As they walked along in the moonlight, what was their conversation? Did they wonder at the interaction between Jesus and Judas? Did they question Judas abruptly leaving them?

Jesus wanted them to be with Him, to watch with Him, and to pray.

He knew and understood what lay before Him and despite His willingness to be obedient to His Father, His heart was in anguish and He asked His Father if there was any other way while still being willing to endure what lay ahead.

As the disciples looked back on that last sweet time with Jesus in the upper room and then their failure to watch with Him as he asked, were their own hearts burdened with guilt and shame for their failure?

The ugly scene of Judas arriving with soldiers to arrest Him angered them. How could he have done such a thing? Yet their own fear caused them to flee the scene. Peter’s curiosity brought him to the courtyard where early in the morning the prophecy Jesus had spoken about his betrayal would come to pass.

It was 6 AM on that Friday that Jesus would stand before Pilate. It had been a long night. He had already suffered much, but within an hour He was sent on to Herod for a decision on what to do with Him. Pilate must have hoped Herod would handle things, but instead he was returned to Pilate where Pilate looked for a way out and offered to release one of the prisoners. The priests had spurred on the crowd and elders who had arranged the betrayal by Judas to choose Barabbas rather than Jesus.

So in the end, as Old Testament prophets had foretold, Jesus was sentenced to death and by 8AM had been led away to Calvary. An hour later the grisly crucifixion had begun with only a handful of those He loved standing nearby to testify to the events. They were the ones who watched the soldiers casting lots for his clothing and heard the insults and mocking railed at Him.

These few would bear witness to the exchange Jesus had with the criminal crucified to one side of Him who was promised paradise. They also heard His words to His mother and the admonition to John to care for her as a son.

By noon that day, darkness covered the scene and at 1PM Jesus cried out to His Father and spoke of His thirst. By 2PM they would hear His final words “It is finished”. At the end of the ninth hour, the soldiers would thrust a spear in His side to assure He was dead. An earthquake would occur and then as sunset approached He was taken from the cross and Joseph of Arimathea offered his own tomb as a burial place.

The sun sank further and further and I might think the disciples’ hearts weighed heavy as it dipped below the horizon.

Was it all over?

What would become of them?

It was God’s darkest hour as He set aside His Son’s life for me, for you, for any who believe in Him.

Good Friday?

Perhaps we for whom He died can say it was good because He gave us the best gift we could have ever received. It was the day He triumphed over evil and gave us the gift of Himself.

He gave us life with Him.