“We’re not evicting you, but you need to move out in eight weeks. We’re going to tear down the house.” What! I think this was the only time in my life when my jaw literally dropped. I was speechless. My husband and I were sitting across from our landlords. Our family had happily lived in their house for seven years, and this was a shock, to say the least. We had eight weeks to find a new home, pack, and move. Where were we going to live?
Okay, pause here. What do we do with our minds when we are faced with situations like this? Psalm 84 tells us, “O Lord of hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in thee.” The simplest answer is to trust in God with all our hearts by relying on Him to do His part to bring His promises to pass. We trust God greater than what our five senses are telling us. We trust God more than the doubts and worries swimming through our minds. God is the Sovereign, period. He is still on the throne, and He never leaves us nor forsakes us. He promises to deliver us and protect us as we rely on Him and take action on His Word. Our goal is to direct our thoughts to trust in and rely on Him to do what His Word says He will do.
Proverbs 3:5:
Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.
How do we trust in God? One dictionary defines the English verb “trust” as “to believe in the honesty, integrity, justice, etc. of; have confidence in.” God is honest; He does not lie. We trust in Him by believing in His honesty and having confidence in Him.
Numbers 23:19:
God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?
God is a God of truth and is without iniquity; He is a just God (Deuteronomy 32:4). He is a God full of compassion; He is gracious, long-suffering, and plenteous in mercy and truth (Psalms 86:15). God is love (I John 4:8). That sounds like a God we can trust with our whole hearts. We stay our minds on His goodness, His sovereignty, His love and mercy toward us; thinking these truths pushes out the worrisome thoughts. This can be step one in challenging situations: grab our minds and believe in God wholeheartedly.
Part of trusting God is relying on Him to do His part to bring His promises to pass as we do our part by taking action on His Word. Look back at Numbers 23:19, “…hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?” If God says in His Word that He will do something or that He wants us to have something, His part is to bring it to pass as we believe and act. We can rely on His willingness and ability to do what His Word says He will do. Whatever we may be facing in life, we can find a promise from God that we can focus on and repeat to ourselves to stay fully confident of our deliverance. It can be as simple as quoting Philippians 4:19, “But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” Or how about Psalms 37:25, “I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread”? These are simple truths we can run through our minds to stay focused on God and to not worry about the circumstances. A key is to lean not unto our own understanding, as we saw in Proverbs 3:5. We take believing action on the Word we know, relying on God to bring His promises to pass. We don’t have to have all the answers ourselves. God will do His part.
Now back to my family’s challenging situation. When the meeting with our landlords was over (and we got over our initial shock), my husband and I prayed together for God to find us a place to live. We got our children involved in prayer and asked other believers for help as well. We kept taking believing action to do our part as we did our best to rely on God to do His part. We contacted local realtors, looked at ads, and drove around town looking for homes for rent. Throughout all those weeks, as time kept ticking away, I had to consistently choose to turn my thoughts of concern and worry back to promises from God’s Word. I had to remind myself to rely on, lean on, trust in, and have confidence in Him, knowing that God is honest, full of compassion, and that He will always do His part. I had to have the patience to wait for His answer to our prayers and His solution for our deliverance.
Proverbs 30:5:
Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him.
Here comes the happy ending! After much trusting, praying, and a lot of believing effort, my husband secured a house for us that was near our boys’ school, had affordable rent, and had ample space for us and our belongings. I was so relieved! I was so thankful! It was a valuable lesson to me in trusting my heavenly Father wholeheartedly and relying on Him to do His part to bring His promises to pass.
Psalms 84:11,12:
For the Lord God is a sun and shield: the Lord will give grace and glory: no good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.
O Lord of hosts, blessed is the man that trusteth in thee.
In any situation, we can trust in God with our whole hearts by relying on Him to do His part. He will bring to pass what He promises us in His Word.