LOVE ALWAYS TRUST
(I Cor. 13:7) always trusts.
The love of God is trust. Trust is an interlocking faith between us and God and us and other people. When we are children, we learn trust from our parents. When Jaden was a baby, I gave him chocolate pudding. I wondered if he would eat it because I had not given him any dark brown food. In a world of orange squishy squash, green beans, and prunes, not every taste he learned was not super delicious. As he saw the new brown food, he zoomed in and took a bite. His eyes lit up as if to say this is better than my favorite squash. Trust in the new brown food was immediately built as he zoomed in for his next bite. Still to this day, he loves chocolate pudding. This exuberance is how we feel at salvation. We cannot wait to zoom in for another reading of God's word, attend a church service or see our new friends at Bible study. Trust in God's goodness is has been established, and hopefully, till today, God carries the same sweetness for us all. Love always trusts.
Paul, as a leader, became all things to each person as he reached out with the gospel. He was their leader, trusting parent, and discipled by living out the Christian life. His actions made him a trustworthy leader because the life he led both privately and publicly was the same. He desired to be a "pleasing aroma of Christ."
Life is not always pleasant. We get into fear over our finances, spouses, friends, co-workers, and with Covid-19, we doubt whether the person we are looking at may or may not be a carrier of potential death. What a horrific break in the essential trust of just going to the grocery store for some apples and toilet paper. There are many opportunities to lose our faith, yet Paul was a great example of knowing that God would always win.
(Acts 23:12-14) The next morning some Jews formed a conspiracy and bound themselves with an oath not to eat or drink until they had killed Paul. More than forty men were involved in this plot. They went to the chief priests and the elders and said, "We have taken a solemn oath not to eat anything until we have killed Paul (Crossway Bibles, 2016).
Forty men had to gather to take down an ordinary middle-aged Jewish guy not carrying any weapons. Indeed, not a formidable opponent at a deli who orders a turkey and cheese sandwich to go. Yet, it was not him that was so intimidating. It was the Great and Mighty God that he served that made them forge a united attack. Our attackers on the spiritual realm working through people and situations are more scared of us than we are of them. We have a host of Angel armies at our disposal because we have Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. We are filled with the Holy Spirit and power.
The God of trustworthy love will never walk away, never turn his back, and never neglect his most basic offering to humankind since the dawn of time (Macchia, 2015).
Whether we are scared or not, we learn to trust through living out the Christian way of life. We remind ourselves of the other victories we have already won through trust. Paul's struggles and our own are the trust-building events to transform us into the person God has intended us to be. People begin to call us the characteristics of God when we pass through the fiery furnaces of life. God will promote us the more we learn that the Love of God is trust. We remember that God is always for us and that He will not walk away.