Trusting In God

Lectionary Reading: Fifth Sunday Of Easter Year A RCL

Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16

1 In you, O Lord, have I taken refuge;let me never be put to shame; *deliver me in your righteousness.
2 Incline your ear to me; *make haste to deliver me.
3 Be my strong rock, a castle to keep me safe,for you are my crag and my stronghold; *for the sake of your Name, lead me and guide me.
4 Take me out of the net that they have secretly set for me, *for you are my tower of strength.
5 Into your hands I commend my spirit, *for you have redeemed me,O Lord, O God of truth.
15 My times are in your hand; *rescue me from the hand of my enemies,and from those who persecute me.
16 Make your face to shine upon your servant, *and in your loving-kindness save me.

Sometimes I come to God and pray and it is all about me. One thing that i really like about the psalms is that they are pretty real. Here the psalmist is praying to God and it is all about him.
What I like about this psalm is that here is a guy who is completely trusting God and its not all roses and rainbows for him. He is reminding God that he is trusting him.

• In you, O Lord, have I taken refuge
• Be my strong rock, a castle to keep me safe
• for you are my tower of strength
• Into your hands I commend my spirit
• My times are in your hand

I may say things like this when I have no other choice. When things are going wrong for me and there is nothing I can do, then I cry out to God like this. But when there is a choice, I often take matters into my own hands, sometimes not even thinking about it. How does it look for me to remember that God is my: refuge, deliverer, stronghold, rock, castle, crag and tower of strength. These are all things that David, the psalmist would use to hide or use seek protection from his enemies because he was a king and a warrior. What are the things that I trust in today?

• my bank account
• my investments
• my abilities
• my education
• my appearance

Am I putting more time, more effort and more trust in those things to solve my problems and help me avoid problems? Those are not bad things. How do I live in such a way that I am not trusting in those things but rather putting my trust in God?

Ultimately, it is God who provides everything I need. All the things that I trust in can be taken away in one fell swoop. Look at story of Job, he had everything and and in one day, it was all taken from him. That can happen to any of us. I am setting myself up for hardship if I am allowing myself to trust in what I can do to provide for myself in life, because it will ultimately disappoint. Jesus taught his disciples to pray for their daily bread, to ask God to give them just what they need for sustenance. Learning to trust God to give me what I need for today, trusting that tomorrow He will provide for me again.

God does provide for me what I need for that day. Whether I am praying for it or not. So Jesus teaching his disciples to pray for that is not so much so that God does it but so that they become aware that God is already doing it. They, like me, need to be taught to be aware of all that God is doing and live into it. Do i really need to pray for God to “lead me not into temptation” or “for thy will be done on earth”. No of course not. God is already doing all that. Praying reminds me to stay faithful and makes me aware of God’s working in my life.