In the past I did a little climbing and I remember as I took my first hesitant step over a sheer edge being asked by my instructor, “Do you trust your gear?” I suspect the truthful answer to that question should have been, ‘Yes but I’m not sure I trust the operator right now!’ In other words, I wasn’t entirely sure that I knew what I was doing and a 30 foot drop below me wasn’t helping my sense of vulnerability.

Jesus spent quite a lot of time asking people to trust God and to not lean on their own understanding. I think we struggle with that a lot. We trust what we see and understand but we find it more difficult to trust in the things we can’t see or don’t understand. Yet that is the way a relationship with God generally works. He says, “Trust me, I’ve got this” and we are asked to lean out over the abyss and let Him take control. In order to be able to do that successfully we have to know Him really well. Going back to my climbing analogy I had every confidence in my instructor, I knew he’d taught hundreds of people before me so when he challenged me I was able to overcome my fear and lean out over the abyss. By the same token if we know God well we will be much more confident to trust Him in the things he asks us to do.

Jesus had absolute confidence in God. He wasn’t afraid to break a Sabbath law because He knew God was okay with it. He could speak healing over a man’s withered hand because He knew God well enough to know He would actually do it and He could teach the way He did because He knew He was speaking God’s words not His own. He trusted God – absolutely.

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Questions:

How well do you know God? How far are you prepared to trust Him? When He calls are you prepared to lean out into the abyss knowing that He’s right there for you?

Action:

Pray for a deeper knowledge of God today and then ask Him to speak instruction to you so that you can lean into His call on your life.