The Wisdom of Trusting God

Are you cursing yourself by wrong choices?

Jeremiah 17 gives us a strong warning, which the following testimony supports. The warning is that we receive either blessing or curse depending on what we put our trust in. The wisest thing you can do is to trust the Lord, while the most foolish thing you can do is to trust yourself or some other human agency.

The Biblical Warning

The prophet Jeremiah proclaimed a clear warning against trusting in self, or other human supply, while giving a strong commendation for trusting God.

“Thus says the LORD; Cursed is the man that trusts in man, and makes flesh (humans) his arm, and whose heart departs from the LORD. For he will be like the heath (tumbleweed) in the desert, and will not see when good comes; but will inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land. Blessed is the man that trusts in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is. For he will be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreads out her roots by the river, and will not see when heat comes, but her leaf will be green; and will not be careful in the year of drought, neither will cease from yielding fruit.” Jeremiah 17:5-8

As is the case with many Bible truths, this truth may not come to life in your understanding until you can see it in operation. So the following testimony from my friend Sammy Au will help you get a better grip on what God is saying to you through the prophet Jeremiah.

Sammy’s Situation

Sammy is a talented and well educated man. He gained an MBA and then set off to create his own business. He is also hard working, so he expected all to go well.

His choice of business was a fast photo developing shop. However, business did not go well. The industry was changing quickly and technology and customer expectations were on the move, so he found himself without the income and success he had planned for.

This ultimately left him with a crippling lease on equipment, with insufficient income to pay the overhead costs of shop, staff and equipment.

His education and training told him that he was done for. Those around him would have counselled him to cut his losses and make the best of it that he could.

Being a relatively new Christian he was aware that God may have plans in the situation, although it certainly looked impossible.

God’s Intervention

As long as Sammy relied on “flesh” (see Jeremiah 17:5) he was under a curse. As long as he trusted in his training, willingness to work hard, and professional planning and approach, things went badly for him.

Then he noticed that a silly thought kept invading his thinking. That thought was to contact the company he was leasing the photo processing equipment from and tell them how badly he was doing. Everything in his professional training warned him not to do that. If the supplier knew he was a bad financial risk then they would be obliged to step in and protect their interests, at Sammy’s loss.

Yet the prompting continued, despite Sammy’s determination to resist it. So, finally, he gave in and contacted the rep from the equipment supplier.

To Sammy’s surprise the company was very supportive and proactive in helping him find a place to off-load the equipment. So at least he would not be hit too hard by the failure of his business. As it stood he was down by about $30,000 just in shutting the shop down, without the cost of his equipment lease.

Icing on the Cake

That irrational prompting from God, contrary to Sammy’s own wisdom and what he had been taught by the professionals, proved to be a good move. But it then proved to be better than he could have hoped. The equipment was on-sold to someone who wanted it and the profit was paid to Sammy, totalling $30,000!

God not only had a better solution than bankruptcy, God brought Sammy out of his failed venture with no loss!

Now, let’s take that back to Jeremiah 17:5-8. When you trust in human wisdom, yourself or the experts, you come under God’s curse, because you are trusting in mortal flesh. But when you trust in God, choosing to go His way, even if it doesn’t make sense, you come under His blessing.

A Slow Learner

However, Sammy was much like the rest of us. He was a slow learner of God’s principles.

Following the failed photo business Sammy set up a maintenance business. He had some pretty good contracts and life was going well. In the process, however, Sammy began to feel confident in this own wisdom again. He felt that he was now master of his own destiny and that he had done pretty well for himself. That means, he began trusting in “flesh” again.

God humbled Sammy yet again, through an explosion at the Longford Gas Plant in Victoria. Sammy’s maintenance activities were disrupted and his business suffered for a while.

That threw Sammy back to prayer and to reliance on God. And through it all Sammy has come to testify that, “For me to live is Christ, not these other things”.

A Final Word from the Bible

The Apostle Paul was strong on his emphasis of putting aside human credibility, so that we can all rely on God. He declared that God delights in humbling humans. God takes those things that are looked down on and uses them to surprise and offend those who think they have everything going for them.

“Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seems to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He takes the wise in their own craftiness. And again, The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain. Therefore let no man glory in men.” 1Corinthians 3:18-21

The individualised concept of life is prevalent in the west today. It robs us of a real appreciation of what we are doing as parents. We are not just caring for children until they can care for themselves. We are not just giving them a valid set of values to take into life. We are not just setting them up for as successful a life journey as they can achieve. We are BUILDING GENERATIONS.

Here’s a way to think about it that might help you get the message.

Imaging a young lady, somebody’s daughter, who has tow potential suitors. One suitor is a fine young man. He is slim, athletic, handsome, articulate, smart, achievement oriented, with good grades, strong personality, good communication skills, a winning smile, animated and caring tones in his speech, and so on. This young man is not only an ideal choice, he is voted so by many of the young ladies and their mothers. He is surely going to be a popular choice and make the young lady the envy of all who know her.

The other suitor is more of a plodder. He is a steady chap from a stable family. He is more retiring and less adventurous, but he is polite, reliable, and genial. While not striking in appearance he could be considered good looking. He is not athletic in build, and may tend toward being overweight, as his father is. What makes this man attractive as a suitor is his expressed affection for the young lady. He seems quite struck on her and he would certainly make a reliable and loving husband.

Telescoping through time we now look two generations ahead and see the generational outcomes of these choices.

The grandchildren of the enviable suitor are a mess. His unfaithfulness and the breakdown of his married caused his children to enter into a range of relationships looking for something to ease their pain. Because he violated the values he taught to his children they lost faith in values and religion and became increasingly cynical of life itself. The children that they bore, in turn, were raised in broken homes, in unsteady relationships with very little anchor in normality.

The grandchildren of the other suitor are lost in materialism. His steady life was lived in self-reliance, in pursuit of human happiness. His children also learned to live to themselves and each chose their best course to achieve that. The grandchildren, then, were born into homes devoid of spiritual reality. They each set out to find fulfillment in the collection of material goods, pursuit of human happiness and quest per personal achievement.

There was no happy choice between these two. For the daughter’s future is not invested in Mr Right. It is not found by a well-suited marriage. It is not achieved by the luck of the draw or the happy choice of someone who will do them proud.

Human happiness and success comes from the Lord. Promotion and good outcomes do not come from the north, south, east or west. They do not come from clever choices, good luck or the reliability of others. They come from the Lord.

To make matters worse, those who look to humans to bring them anything at all are putting their trust in “man”. The prophet Jeremiah warns us that we are cursed if we put out trust in man and look to human resources to provide for us – see Jeremiah 17:5-8).

Generations are built as a result of the matches made. We do not find a bride or a “hubby”. We do not just have some “kids” as part of our own personal journey. We are building generations. The children and the children’s children will be seriously impacted by the choice of spouse.

For further comment on this topic see the posting “Why did you choose HER to be my mother?” at: http://chrisfieldblog.com/family/“why-did-you-choose-her-to-be-my-mother”

In summary – recognize that you are BUILDING GENERATIONS, not pursuing your own ends or your own happiness.

But then realize that YOU NEED GOD TO BE IN CHARGE OF THE PROCESS – since you are surely not able to control it yourself. You do not know the end from the beginning – but God does.