Based on Psalm 28 (New King James Version)
“To You I will cry, O Lord my Rock: do not be silent to me, lest, if You are silent to me, I become like those who go down to the pit. Hear the voice of my supplications when I cry to You, when I lift up my hands toward Your holy sanctuary. Do not take me away with the wicked and with the workers of iniquity, who speak peace to their neighbors, but evil is in their hearts. Give them according to their deeds, and according to the wickedness of their endeavors; give them according to the work of their hands; render to them what they deserve. Because they do not regard the works of the Lord, nor the operation of His hands, He shall destroy them and not build them up. Blessed be the Lord, because He has heard the voice of my supplications! The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in Him, and I am helped; therefore my heart greatly rejoices, and with my song I will praise Him. The Lord is their strength, and He is the saving refuge of His anointed. Save Your people, and bless Your inheritance; shepherd them also, and bear them up forever.”
Today’s message is very simple, but, I hope it becomes an introspective one. What do you depend on? Where is your trust placed? According to an article in Judith Sills wrote in Psychology Today (posted 2/25/2010), she wrote: “We trust, basically, because of who we are and how we learned to greet the world, an orientation established long before we ever met that forked tongued boss or dodgy teammate. Experiences with betrayal certainly reshape specific expectations, but we are always bent towards trust. Or away from it. Trust, as Eric Erickson believed, is established in a developmental phase occurring before our second birthday. According to that line of thinking, my own Mom was just so reliable with a bottle and a loving touch that I cannot bring myself to be suspicious, no matter how badly a relationship or an icon suddenly lets me down.” So from a human interaction level, it seems that the professionals point to our experiences in our early years.
After those early stages, when we start seeing how the world works, and an education starts taking place, many may have begun to establish more trust on things and concepts; either by own personal disposition, experiences with people, or probably both. This is the old controversy of nature vs. nurture. Nature; because some people believe that we are who we are because we are born that way. And nurture; because some people believe that we are who we are because we are a product of our environment. I personally subscribe to the idea that the answer lies somewhere in the middle. If you have lived long enough, you may have realized that the truth lies somewhere in the middle, when it comes to this sort of thing. But of course, never taking away the concept of personal responsibility. It’s all about choice at the end of the day, despite many outside factors.
During those learning stages, when people stop becoming children and turn into adults, many start putting their trust on money, on power, on an education or career, on other people, etc. People may start turning to those things with the impression that in the “real world”, those things are the only things that offer security. Honestly speaking, it’s not wrong to have those things. As a matter of fact, it can be a part of God’s blessing to a person’s life when they develop healthy relationships with different people, or become successful in a career or in business, or even become someone that exercises a lot of power. Abraham was a person of wealth. Joseph was sold by his brothers as a slave, but became the supreme authority in a global power. David started off being a shepherd boy and later became king over Israel. Daniel started as a slave and became second in authority in one of the most powerful kingdoms that have ever existed. So money, and power, and a career or an education, or relationships, etc. are not bad things within themselves. Where do they become the problem?
The problem begins when those things start taking the place of God; when God becomes second place. Now, let’s look at the practical reason of why it is not a good idea to put other things before God. After all, logic is a great ally when it is founded a certain reality. How can we depend more on things that have vast limitations than on God that created all things? Money did not exist before the creation. People did not exist before the creation of this planet. As such, human power and authority had no previous existence either. In a similar manner, human knowledge did not exist either. God is the Creator of Heaven and Earth. He is eternal. He was there at the beginning. He is here in the present (no matter how much people try to pretend like He doesn’t exist). And He will be there in eternity. Our realities don’t affect His existence. He is the I AM. So sound logic should lead us to depend more on God than what could be in the world.
And here is the beautiful reality that we have in God; His love to us. He is this Immovable and Almighty Being that wants to be our personal everything. Here are some passages that assures us of God’s love and care for us: “I will lift up my eyes to the hills—from whence comes my help? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth. He will not allow your foot to be moved; He who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, He who keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade at your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord shall preserve you from all evil; He shall preserve your soul. The Lord shall preserve your going out and your coming in from this time forth, and even forevermore.” Psalm 121. “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: ‘For Your sake we are killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.’ Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Romans 8:35-39. And here He teaches us of a certain reality: “Thus says the Lord: ‘Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart departs from the Lord. For he shall be like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see when good comes, but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land which is not inhabited. ’Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose hope is the Lord. For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, which spreads out its roots by the river, and will not fear when heat comes; but its leaf will be green, and will not be anxious in the year of drought, nor will cease from yielding fruit.”Jeremiah 17:5-8.
So, who do you truly depend on? Lord bless! John