What is this thing called trust
A believer is told to adopt?
Is it really that important
Is the question I want to pop.
Little children are very hard ears
Adults would have us understand
But when it comes to trust
They beat adults on every hand.
They don’t worry about tomorrow
Like adults daily do,
They put their trust in these adults
Who worry like me and like you.
We pray and pray and pray again
About the same things o’er and o’er,
“Where is the trust?” I ask myself
When we feel we must pray some more.
“We put matters in God’s hands,” we say
And then take them out again
As though we do not trust Him all the way
To deal with whatever brings us pain.
A case in point is something we need
That we take to God in prayer,
We wrap it up in splendid words
Convinced that God will always hear.
We pray it in the morning when we wake
And at the end of day when we sleep,
All through the day we whisper it
And every chance we get we repeat.
Where is the trust in all of this?
Again where is the faith and trust?
If God be the God of miracles
Why do we continue to fuss?
Could it be He doesn’t hear?
Could it be we are too far away?
Could it be that He is not quite as near
As our detractors often say?
Could it be we’ve not been as good
As believers ought to be
Or, might it be God just wants to hear us
As some preach persuasively?
These are the myriads of questions
Which confront us when we pray,
Yet God merely requests of us
Our trust every step of the way.
“Except ye become as a little child,”
He repeatedly says to us,
Prayer no matter how long or oft repeated
Is of little value without trust.
Pray until something happens
Has become particularly puzzling to me
For if a child had done this to a parent
It would be reprimanded severely.
Yet we petition God over and over
On a matter that’s important to us
And then pretend to all the world
That ours is a demonstration of trust.
We must convince God we need it
Hence we must pray for it a lot,
What does trust really have to do with it?
Apparently not a single tittle or jot.
Trust is the confident expectation
That God will do what’s best by us,
His glory is foremost in the exchange
As often expressed by His Son, Jesus.
Our good is always on His heart
But it’s connected to a greater plan,
And this we often cannot see
Because of our selfish demand.
Our myopic view is as a result of self,
Self is the shortsightedness crave
But a view in the distant depends on trust
That orders the way we behave.
When the outcome is not what we prayed for
Trust will invigorate our walk
And thanksgiving to God our Saviour
Will continue to adorn our talk.
For God sees around each bend
And beyond the shadows of our thoughts
And if only we could see all that He sees
We would never be distraught.
For precisely what He does we would do
And what He allows we would allow
And trust for us would be the flavour
That affects the way we pray right now.
Our prayers would be loaded with thanksgiving
With adoration and with gratitude
And trust would be the principal ingredient
In our very prayerful attitude.
Stewart Russell © July 2017
