Christian Living

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"Do You Trust Me?"

Fire alarms scream through the building. A seven-year-old girl awakens and looks around herself in terror, but before she can go anywhere or do anything, a man in a fire suit bursts through the door, and holding out his hand to her, says, “I can help you—do you trust me?” The little girl’s terror ceases as she says "yes" and puts her hand in his.
Five minutes later they are still standing there in the same place.
“Shouldn’t we leave, sir?” she calls over the sound of the fire alarms, a quiver of fear back in her voice.
“I have a plan. I know what I am doing. Do you trust me?”
“Yes, I do,” she answers again, and remains standing there, mystified, but trusting one who knows more than she does.

Do you ever feel like the little girl? You’re in a time of peaceful rest in your life, and all of a sudden, fire alarms are going off all around you. As terror fills your soul, you hear the voice of God saying, “Do you trust me?” What is your answer? You might agree to trust Him the first time, but what about when it’s been awhile, the apparent danger is getting worse, and He still doesn’t seem to be doing anything?

“Sir, I can hardly breathe—shouldn’t we leave?” the little girl croakes out through the smoke.
“Just trust me,” the man says again. “There are things about this that you don’t know or understand. Do you trust me?” The girl answers with a reluctant nod.

In our lives, the more time passes, the harder it often is to trust God. As the smoke of a problem builds up around us, we want to run and do something, but God just keeps saying, "Do you trust Me?" He has more information than we do; He is wisdom itself, and He knows just what to do. The sensible choice is to trust Him, but how often do we choose that?

The smoke is so thick that the girl begins to feel faint from lack of oxygen.
"Sir!" she tries once more.
"I'm here, and I'm watching out for you," he answers. "Do you want to do it your own way? You are free to go, but I urge you to trust me in this. Do you trust me?"
"Yes," she squeaks, and then crumples to the floor.

The little girl had such faith in the fireman, though she had never met him before, and she had no past history of him saving her. Yet she trusted him with her very life. She knew that he had been trained to know what to do in such a situation, and she hadn't been. She knew that he was wiser than her.
God knows what to do in every situation; He is wiser than the wisest guy or gal on earth. Jeremiah declares that the man who trusts in the Lord, and makes the Lord his hope, that man is blessed. (Jeremiah 17:7) That is what God calls us to do—to trust Him, and to have Him be our hope of deliverance. Just a couple chapters before, God told us that He would deliver us from the hand of the wicked, and that He would redeem us from the hand of the terrible! (Jeremiah 15:21) He has promised to watch out for us; now we must trust Him. Note that the verse doesn't even say that such a man will be blessed—it says he is blessed! The blessing is, in part, the peace that comes from trusting our God.
Looking back, in years to come, sometimes it will be plain that the ways of the Lord worked out best in the long run—others times, we'll have to wait until we get to Heaven to see how it all fits together. But in the here-and-now, we can do nothing to take care of a situation better than He does—we can only make ourselves available to do His bidding.

The little girl awakens to clear air and a nurse bending over her.
"She is with us again!" the nurse cries out joyfully. The curtains around the girl's bed open up, and in steps a kind-faced man with concern on his face.
"Are you OK?" he asks the girl kindly. "You've been unconscious for many hours."
"Yes, sir, I am…who are you?"
"I am the fireman who was in that room with you when you fainted, and who held you until the blaze died down."
"Why didn't you get us out of there sooner?" she asks, still not understanding. "Why did we have to stay there so long?"
"There was nowhere to go. Before I got to your room, I heard a report over the radio that the entire exterior of the building had been consumed in flames. The only safe spot in the whole building was that room that you were in. Your apartment, and specifically your room, once housed the President overnight, so it had been given special walls that couldn't catch on fire. If we had tried to go anywhere else, we would have never made it out. Only in that room could we survive. The smoke may have been bad, but the fire would have been worse."

Do you know everything about all the nooks and crannies of your life? Or will you trust the One who knows all this and more?

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