I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit. (NLT)
What does it mean to trust in someone? To put your faith in someone? It means being assured that they are who you believe they are, that they will honour their word, and won’t let you down, right? Doesn’t that sound very one-sided? All the pressure seems to be on the one who has the trust on them, but what is our part of the bargain?
I never looked at it like that before, as faith puts a lot of pressure on the one you are trusting. Humans are rarely able to live up to the trust of someone else. There’s always a rare few, but at some point in our lives, we inevitably aren’t able to honour our word and we let someone down.
But not God.
We may think he has let us down, like if we’ve prayed hard that someone we love will be healed of a disease, but they pass away. Or we are praying for that promotion, but we’re overlooked yet again. Or that we’ll find that special someone and live happily ever after, only to find out they were not who they said they were, and we’re alone, yet again.
But that is not on God, that is on us. Yes, of course we want our loved one to live, but human bodies are made to one day fail – it’s a reality. People are always going to overlook us or be ‘too good to be true.’ It’s the nature of people. But not God. He’s always God. He is always able. He is always there for us, loves us unconditionally, and is the source of all hope and joy. Why? Because God is love, and love is hope, joy, peace, faith, trust, kindness, charity, and all things wonderful in this world.
… to read the rest of the post, pick up 30 Days of Joy: A Devotional, available as an eBook through Amazon, or as a paperback on my website.