In What Do You Trust?

Recently, our family has been reading through Proverbs as a part of our breakfast routine.  We have been soaking in the central theme: the fear of the Lord as the beginning of wisdom.  What we fear and what we trust are closely related.  Trusting in God is what it means to fear Him.  When other things take that central place in our lives, disorder ensues in various ways.  This is very clear as the book unfolds.  Wisdom and folly stand in contrast.  Both call out to all who will listen (1:20; 9:13-17).  Following Lady Wisdom is life (9:3-6) and following Lady Folly is death (9:18).

In the turmoil of these days, our hearts hear many voices and opinions beckoning us to put our trust in them.  Let me pose some diagnostic questions that I have been asking my own heart as we have been studying Proverbs.

Do you trust in your work?  Our temptation is to trust in physical provision and the work of our hands, then to despair when things fall apart.  Proverbs says, “Whoever trusts in his riches will fall, but the righteous will flourish like a green leaf” (11:28).  Many have seen their investments or retirement quickly dissipate over the course of the past couple months.  What once seemed to promise such security and reward has vanished all too quickly.  Later in Proverbs we see: “Whoever trusts in his own mind is a fool, but he who walks in wisdom will be delivered” (28:26).  God has a way of humbling the self-confident by surrounding them with problems they cannot solve.  This is not a spiteful thing.  As the previous verse highlighted, God’s purpose is to deliver.

Do you trust in your plans?  If you have not had your plans disrupted by covid-19, then you are among an exceptional few in the world.  I come from a long line of planners, my wife even more so.  Planning is good, but it often becomes the object of our trust.  Proverbs says: “The plans of the heart belong to man, but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord” (16:1).  And later we read, “The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps” (19:9).  When your plans are disrupted, how do you respond?  I find I am more irritable and impatient when my plans are crossed.  On the flip side, I can see that I can have a false sense of security when I feel I have a solid plan for the week, the next few months, or years.  Yet, Proverbs calls me back to trust in the Lord who truly controls the future.  “Commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will be established” (16:3).  Don’t stop planning, but trust in Him by committing your work and your plans to Him. 

Do you trust in rest?  It is easy to laugh at the comical picture in Proverbs of the sluggard who puts his hand in the bowl but is too lazy to bring it back to his mouth (19:4; 26:15).  Yet, it hits close to home when I consider how often I put off the important or difficult tasks in my day, preferring the easier or trivial ones.  The sluggard does not want to work when it is time to work, yet he expects the fruit that results from diligence (20:4).  “The desire of the sluggard kills him, for his hands refuse to labor” (21:25).  I find that oftentimes the days where I feel the need to work late is because I played the sluggard earlier on.  I then try to cram too much in the remaining hours to compensate.  In an excellent book titled The Gospel at Work, Greg Gilbert and Sebastian Traeger suggest that many of those known as “workaholics” by our society are actually sluggards trying to deal with the fruit of laziness.  Granted, that is not the only reason for wrongful over-working, but it is certainly one of the reasons and one that may easily go unnoticed.  “The hand of the diligent will rule, while the slothful will be put to forced labor” (12:24).  Diligence itself is not the solution for slothfulness.  The heart must be redirected.  Trust must be in God, the simultaneous source of our diligence and rest.

If you found yourself to have answered yes (or “sometimes”) to any of the above questions, what can be done?  Seeing our failure is a good part of fearing the Lord.  To see our sin is to hear the voice of wisdom calling.  If you see your sin, do not be discouraged but take heart because it is that very sight that the Holy Spirit uses to direct us to Christ. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 1:23-24, “but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”  If you, like me, at different times in your day put your trust in the wrong things, call your heart back to trust in God.  “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God” (Psalm 42:11).