Trust???

Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid; for the Lord God is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation. Isaiah 12:2 ESV.

Do you trust in in the one and only Lord God? What exactly is trust? For the Israelites at this time, it meant trusting in the one who freed them from Egypt. I am sure it took a great deal of trust in the Lord God as they marched out of Egypt. For the next 40 some years they would struggle with this very same trust. At times they face huge armies, sometimes they faced a lack of water and food, but God provided them with everything they needed. In their history we see how they struggled with trust as they became a nation with a king. God’s promise of salvation was always there, and it came as Jesus was born, lived, and died for all of our sins on the cross.

What about today? We have just come through the pandemic, Covid 19. How was your trust in God? Did it drive you to trust in the one and only true God more, or did you develop a lack of trust in God; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? Now things are different, people can get out of their homes and become more social. Our proclaiming the trust we have in the Lord God should be shouted from the rooftops, but are we strangely quiet?

When I was teaching, many times I would see this trust in God. In my first religion curriculum, it was called, Come Lord Jesus Come. You really saw the excitement and the trust in God grow as you went through the year. Those second graders really love and believed in the one and only true God. As I continue teaching through the years, I would witness the faith that children have in God. When the twin towers in New York City came down, I saw the trust they had in God!

While teaching confirmation over the years, I have seen the faith of the some of the students grow in God. One case in particular I remember. Her faith and trust in God was shown in her evangelism. She would take and bring her guys to church. She would tell them how important her God was. Some would even remain after she stopped dating them.

I am not unaware of how people are influenced by their own sinfulness. Like Israel, we all struggle with our trust in God which leads to fear. Sometimes we can be very strong while other times we trust in other things. I see this in myself and repent when I realize my trust is not in the one and only true God. While at the bedside of many parishioners, I have witnessed faith and a lack of fear as they trusted in God and I just marveled.

Anymore, when I see our money and it says, “In God we trust”, I often wonder whose God they worship in our country. It is truly Jesus Christ who took our sins and died for them on the cross, in order that we might be acceptable to God the Father. We give thanks to God the Holy Spirit in which we have received in Holy Baptism him who gives us this faith and trust. God has done it all for us. His Body and Blood he has given to and for us for the forgiveness of sins. The only thing we can do is to reject this salvation.

Thanks be to God for his continued love for us and we know our salvation is not of this world, but we look forward to his promise of eternal life and salvation in heaven with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Hallelujah!

Walk each day trusting in the one and only true God.