Simply Trust

“I know, O Lord, that Your judgments are righteous,
And that in faithfulness You have afflicted me.”  Psalm 119:75

One of the most perplexing aspects of the Christian life is trying to understand God’s purpose when defeat or affliction comes into our lives, thereby hindering or even halting our ministry and testimony for Him. Many have been the servants of God who were sincerely working for Christ, seeking to obey His will and His Word as best they understood them, but then suddenly were laid aside by sickness, or had their ministries stopped by the enemies of God (sometimes even by fellow Christians), or for some other reason, and could not discern why God allowed it.

What then? When affliction comes, we must simply trust God, knowing that whatever He does is right and that our affliction is invested with His faithfulness. He is our Creator and, through Christ, has also become our Heavenly Father: “Furthermore, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them; shall we not much rather be subject to the Father of spirits, and live?” (Heb. 12:9).

He knows what we don’t know, therefore we can “know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose” (Rom. 8:28). This verse, Romans 8:28, is one of the most familiar and most wonderful promises in the Bible, but it is one of the most difficult to believe in time of affliction or loss. Nevertheless, it is God’s promise, and “as are the promises of God, in Him they are yes; therefore also through Him is our Amen to the glory of God through us” (2 Cor. 1:20).

God knows the end from the beginning, and in that wonderful day when Christ returns, “then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known” (1 Cor. 13:12). Until then, we must simply trust.