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Trust in the Lord


Trust in the LORD and do good;  dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the LORD! Trust in him and he will do this: He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun. Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him; do not fret when men succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes. Refrain from anger and turn from wrath; do not fret—it leads only to evil (Psalm 37:3-8)
          Puzzles are fun. You stare at the pieces for what seems like hours. You try putting them together in every possible way at least 10 times and nothing works, then suddenly....  you discover what you've been missing. With a puzzle, those 'A-Ha!" moments come with a sense of victory.  In life, puzzle pieces coming together often unlock challenges.
            I have been holding on to the puzzle of trust for a long time. As I read Renovation of the Heart, I discovered that trust fits together with firm intention to obey or to follow. It's an active thing.  A second piece that fits the first! As I worked my way through a Bible study called Stronger, I came across a challenge to begin dreaming again.  My reaction was that every dream I have ever had has been dashed to the ground, broken into an infinite number of  pieces. There are good reasons why those dreams failed, but now,  I'm afraid to dream. The absolute assurance of failure is a lie that cripples.  A third piece.
          As I sat waiting of my car to be inspected  the other day, the three pieces all fit together. I need to prayerfully accept the challenge to dream again...to hope again. The only way I can do that is to trust God with that dream, even if it comes crashing down around my ears again, and part of dreaming involves deciding that no matter what happens, to hold on to the Lord.
          This is the same situation many people in our nation are facing. They had a dream about our nation being a certain kind of nation. Over the past 8 years, those dreams have been rudely shattered in an ideological Kristallnacht. They looked for a political candidate who would restore their dream, and their knight in shining armor has not appeared. The answer is not to let go of our dreams  for ourselves or our nation, but to trust in God. Today's passage gives us a number of pieces to the puzzle:
I.        Trust in the Lord, delight in Him and commit your way to Him.
II.       Do good. Dwell in the land and enjoy the life that is available to you.
III.      Do not fret when you see evil. Refrain from anger, turn from wrath.
IV.     Let God work.(Be still, wait patiently)
          Is the result the nation we desire? The life we desire? That's not what is promised. We are told that God will make our righteousness shine like the dawn, the justice of your cause like the noonday sun. Our circumstances  are not God's focus. We are.

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