Psalm 37:5: If We Trust, God Will ACT

"Commit your way to the LORD;

trust in him, and he will act."

Psalm 37:5

Ever feel as if the Lord isn't acting? Perhaps you are in a deep trial, and you feel as if God isn't doing a single thing. It's frustrating, is it not? However, I would like to encourage you this morning that perhaps the reason why God isn't acting is because you aren't trusting.

A great theme that runs through the Gospels is how we ought to believe God before we see God. If we were to flip this pattern around, it simply wouldn't work. Take the Israelites, for example. They saw God deliver them from the Egyptians and literally part the see that they may walk through it, yet they still failed to trust in God. They saw the Lord, yet they did not believe in him. On the other hand, Moses was a faithful man of God who first believed that God would deliver, and then saw God's deliverance. In the end, we must believe before we see.

Likewise, this is the pattern of Pslam 37:5, quoted above. Note the pattern of the verse: that we ought to first commit and trust, and then God will act. The verse does not tell us to wait for the Lord to act that we might trust in him, but rather the opposite. Honestly, I think this is the problem we often face when we go through trials. We expect God to act before we trust, but that is not God's pattern. He wants you to learn from your trial, and that requires having faith in him, even when the walls of Jericho are still standing tall.

So, how are you doing in committing and trusting your trials to the Lord so that he may act? Are you sitting around in anxiety waiting for God to do something that he might prove himself to you? If so, you have it wrong. He has already proved himself to you in saving you from your sin. Although you are now in trial, it is never he who deserts you (see Heb. 13:5-6), but always you who desert him as you attempt to deal with the trial on your own. Let me encourage you, Christian, to always commit your way to the Lord and trust in him, that he might act on your behalf. Stop trusting in yourself and waiting for God to do something. Release your control, so that God can take hold of it and doing amazing wonders of which you could not imagine. Amen.