Trusting God - is it safe or risky?

Without trust, it is impossible to have a relationship with God. How often must I learn this lesson?

Security is a myth without God, yet obeying God and keeping in step with the Holy Spirit feels like the riskiest thing on the planet – like bungee jumping without a chord. Leap and the safety net will appear!! In reality, though, walking in God’s will is the safest place I can be. But O does it take trust!

Here’s an example of what I mean from the Bible. Being an agricultural engineer, I would rather go for an irrigated crop than a rain-fed one. After all, who wants to depend on the elements? But true to character, God chose a rain-fed system for the special Land He chose for His people. Take a look:

10 The land you are entering to take over is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you planted your seed and irrigated it by foot as in a vegetable garden. 11 But the land you are crossing the Jordan to take possession of is a land of mountains and valleys that drinks rain from heaven.12 It is a land the LORD your God cares for; the eyes of the LORD your God are continually on it from the beginning of the year to its end. (Deut. 11:10-12)

Irrigating “by foot” is exhausting work though the farmer has the illusion that he is in control. But who can resist the appeal of “a land of mountains and valleys that drinks the rain from heaven”? Even our little garden of flowers and shrubs seems to leap with joy after a shower of rain. Water from a hosepipe just does not have the same effect. I read somewhere that rain contains dissolved nitrogen which has been “fixed” from the air by lightening. This nitrogen then fertilises the plants it falls on.

However, depending on rain meant that Israel would have to trust God to send it. Further, the reliability of the rains would hinge on their obedience to God.

13 So if you faithfully obey the commands I am giving you today-to love the LORD your God and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul-14 then I will send rain on your land in its season, both autumn and spring rains, so that you may gather in your grain, new wine and oil. 15 I will provide grass in the fields for your cattle, and you will eat and be satisfied. (Deut. 11:13-15)

Now one might be persuaded to think that God was arm-twisting His people. He wasn’t. He was establishing an early warning system intended for their safety. One can live independent from God and make things work without Him. It is tempting to do this even as a Christian. But because we are depending on ourselves it is possible to stray dangerously far from God without realising it. Would it not be better to have an early warning system? The Israelites knew that drought and crop failure was a warning that they had drifted from God, their source of true life and all good things.

We should live life in such a way that failure will be inevitable without God’s help. In fact, this is how God wants you to live. So may you allow God to lead you into that risky place of abundant blessing where obedience requires trust and success hinges on Him.

Cheers for now - Ian