Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
For many sincere people, the longest drawn-out battle of faith they have is to learn to trust the Lord with complete confidence. Even into old age, Abraham and Sarah both had that battle. Don't be surprised if you have that same battle.
A person may solemnly insist that he believes the Lord loves him, yet be tormented with fear that perhaps he has misunderstood the Lord's promise, or he may fear that his own deep unworthiness will render his heart-felt prayer to be unanswerable, while still believing that "God is love."
The battle is not believing that he loves us, but believing that we qualify for an answer to our prayer, while we still believe He loves us. Maybe we think His love for us is mostly pity--a temptation that must be resisted. You may have someone working for you as a janitor, and you love that person; yet you do not honor him in your home as you do your peers.
Isaiah quotes the Lord directly: "My word is like the snow and the rain that come down from the sky to water the earth. They make the crops grow and provide seed for planting and food to eat. So also will be the word that I speak--it will not fail to do what I plan for it. It will do everything I send it to do" (55:10, 11, Good News Bible).
We don't want to be presumptuous and treat the Lord as a servant. But our confidence in Him must be based on humble reverence permeated with a solid conviction that He loves us and He honors us as the brothers and sisters of His own Son, and in the long run, He does everything that is best for us.
Pitch your camp in Matthew 7:7-11; read those words over and over; lay your life on the line to believe them. It's back again to our infantile cry, "Abba, Father!" (Rom. 8:15).
--Robert J. Wieland
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: June 10, 2004.
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