Jesus, I Trust In You

It is easy to say that we trust in Jesus, but weak as we are, that trust is often tested and doubted. This is nothing new, of course. We can see this doubt happening with the Chosen People throughout the Old Testament. For example, in the 16th chapter of Exodus, we see the Children of Israel, just a month after their departure from slavery in Egypt, encamped in the desert of Sin, between Elim and Sanai, and what are they doing? They are complaining and grumbling against Moses and Aaron.

“Would that we had died at the Lord’s hand in the land of Egypt, as we sat by our fleshpots and ate our fill of bread, but you had to lead us into the desert to make the whole community die of famine” (Exodus 16:3)! Despite their doubt, their faltering trust, God responds with yet another mighty work of mercy and love. He rains down manna upon the desert each morning and quail in the twilight of each evening for all to gather what they need each day so that they “may know that I, the Lord, am your God” (Ex. 16:12).

Within another month, the people are camped before Mt. Sinai where they again witnessed the power of God, heard the trumpets of God, and trembled before him. Moses is then called to the mountain top to where he stays for 40 days receiving the tablets of the Ten Commandments, and when he comes down from the mountain, he finds the people worshipping a golden calf. In just 40 days, they have fallen away, lost their faith in God. What is going on here?

We see this failure of trust, or faith, happen in the New Testament as well. For example, In Matthew’s Gospel, chapter 16: 13-23, we see Peter acknowledge who Jesus is, saying, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Not long after this stunning realization, Peter, upon hearing Jesus say that he must “go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly from the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised”, takes Jesus aside and rebukes him for saying such things. He has forgotten that quickly who Jesus is, and Jesus bats the ball back into his court saying: “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns” (v. 23). Or, in John’s Gospel, chapter 6:22-59, we see the people who had followed Jesus, who had heard his words and seen his miraculous deeds, who had seen him raise people from the dead, walk away from him when he describes himself as the Bread of Life and says, “Whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world…for my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him” (vs 54-56).

How often do we demand signs? How often do we walk away from the evidence of God’s faithfulness in us, because we did not get what we wanted or hoped for, or did not hear what we wanted to hear? The ancient Israelites in the desert failed in trust because they underestimated God’s love for them. How many times do we make the same mistake? It is astonishing, is it not, how we can doubt God’s love for us in the face of the most powerful and dramatic evidence of it in Jesus’ willing sacrifice of love for us on the Cross. And yet, God does not get mad and withdraw petulantly into silence and faithlessness from us.

Listen to Isaiah here: “Do you not know/ or have you not heard? The Lord is the eternal God,/ creator of the ends of the earth./ He does not faint nor grow weary,/ and his knowledge is beyond scrutiny” (Is. 40:28). We are challenged always to recognize that faith is more than the words we have heard, or spoken. Faith is a gift from God, but it is also a matter of the will. It is a matter of choice. Still, we sometimes fail in our trust; we lose faith. The great mystery of God’s love is that he knows our weaknesses, and yet he remains faithful to us, even when we falter. Isaiah writes this to encourage our faith: “He gives strength to the fainting;/ for the weak he makes vigor abound./ Though young men faint and grow weary,/ and youths stagger and fall,/ They that hope in the Lord will renew their strength,/ they will soar on eagle’s wings;/ They will run and not grow weary,/ walk and not grow faint” (vs. 29-31).

For the growth of our faith and trust in God, let us pray: Help us, Lord, to put our trust in you when we encounter the trials and challenges of our day. Give us eyes to see you in the people we meet today. Open our ears to hear your words to us in Scripture through the noise of the world we move through today. Help us to trust that you are truly present with us, especially in the difficult moments. Strengthen us when we are weak so that we may come to know, to love, and to serve you in all things. Amen.