How can I learn to trust in the faithfulness of God?

The faithfulness of God! What a glorious fact this is, and how little have we grasped it. He must ever be faithful to all that He is, and to all that He has said. He cannot deny Himself. nor can He deny the one who stakes everything upon Him and the truth of His Word. Therefore it is that "the children of men put their trust under the shadow of Thy wings." as the psalm says. If our souls really hold to the faithfulness of God that is what we must inevitably do. We see that He is wholly true, and therefore He is to be wholly trusted.

Verses 5 and 6 were deeply impressed on the writer at an early age, and have no doubt spoken seriously to many others before and since that time. There are many things in which our understanding is extremely faulty, and if we depend on it, we shall be badly misled. the only safe alternative is to trust in the Lord with all our heart. that is, fully and without reserve. He will certainly not deceive us, nor is there any possibility of His making a mistake.

Why, we may ask, were Israel charged to "remember all the way" by which the Lord their God had led them? Assuredly, to draw out their hearts in praise for the past, and to strengthen their confidence in God for the future. Thus it must ever be. "We'll praise Him for all that is past, and trust Him for all that's to come." May we do so more and more! May we just move on, day by day, praising and trusting, trusting and praising. These are the two things which redound to the glory of God, and to our peace and joy in Him. When the eye rests on the "Eben-ezers" which lie all along the way, the heart must give forth its sweet "Hallelujahs" to Him who has helped us hitherto, and will help us right on to the end. He has delivered, and He doth deliver, and He will deliver. Blessed chain! Its every link is divine deliverance.

A Christian who had had fifty years' experience of the goodness of God said that if she had raised a stone of remembrance every time the Lord had helped her, she would have built a solid wall fifty years in length. She had found the Lord ever by her side, a very present help, renewing His mercies every morning, and never failing in His compassions. And many can say, and we among them, “there has not failed one good word that He has spoken, ” and if in our wall of Ebenezers there are gaps, they mark the times when in self-sufficiency and pride we thought we could manage our own affairs without reference to God; then we had to learn sore lessons as to our folly, and own that independence of the Lord meant disaster for us. But even then He was not far from us, and as when He arose from the dead He appeared to defeated Simon (Luke 24), so has He often proved to us that His grace is greater than our failure. And because of all this we can say, as we look back on the past, “ Hitherto hath the Lord helped us .” We have been kept by the power of God, and with confidence we can look on to the future when He will present us “ faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy .” To Him be thanksgiving and praise both now and for ever!

But to return to our prophet, for we must not miss the great message that he has for us at the opening of this New Year. He remembered the wormwood and the gall, but another cup had been put to his lips that, in his misery, he had almost forgotten — a cup of mercies. "It is of the Lord's mercies," he says, "that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not." "Therefore we have hope." What was it that sustained our souls in the past when they were all but overwhelmed? The Lord's mercies! Therefore we have hope. When other helpers failed and comforts fled, what was it that failed not? His compassions. For "His compassions are new every morning and great is His faithfulness." Aye, the sorrows did not come alone, the mercies followed hard upon their heels. Therefore we have hope! And suppose there were neither mercies nor compassions, What then? Then, "The Lord is my portion, says my soul; therefore will I hope in Him." It is good to hear the song that hope sings break in upon the prophet's dirge, and to learn that the Lord was greater than his greatest sorrow, and it carries us into the New Testament, where hope not only sings her song, but sings it with a great confidence. "And not only so," says the Apostle, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation works patience; and patience, experience, and experience, hope; and hope makes not ashamed because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost that is given to us" (Rom. 5:3-5).

Even Paul, in 2 Corinthians 12, did not know what to pray for as he ought; but the Lord was faithful and made the sufficiency of His grace known — an answer far better than the prayer. And yet not Paul only, but even we know that all things work together for good — not merely shall, but do now, and this for others as well as ourselves, for those that love God. Otherwise sorrows irritate. Here they are twice blessed, blessed to those exercised by them, blessed to other children of God; in short, to those that love Him and to those that are called according to purpose, for this is here carefully stated, lest the love of God on our part might enfeeble the thought of grace on His. Hence purpose and calling according to it are put forward.

The Apostle has shewn how blessedly the Holy Spirit works in us by the new life in Christ, and the indwelling Holy Spirit, producing spiritual experiences. Now we learn that not only is God the Holy Spirit in us, but that God is for us in "all things" that are taking place around us. In regard to all the circumstances of life, the trials, the sorrows, the conflicts and the difficulties, we may not know how to pray as we ought; but this we do know, "That all things work together for good to them that love God". We may not always see how this loss, or that trial, is working for our good, but faith knows that good will be the result in time and eternity. To understand the way in which all things work for good we may have to wait, even as the Lord said to Peter, "What I do thou knowest not now; but thou shalt know hereafter". Another has said, "The sorrow may not be remedied, but the sorrow is blessed".

To assure our hearts that all is working for good, we are reminded that we are "the called" of God; and, if called, God has a purpose for us. God saves us because we need saving; God calls us because He wants us. All God's ways with us in the present have in view the fulfilment of His purpose for us in the future.

Now the Spirit of God has recorded these things for our warning. The true believer is marked by confidence in God, and the more simple and absolute his confidence the better. But it is correspondingly true that he is marked by no confidence in himself, and the more deep his self-distrust the better. It is when we think that we stand that we are in danger of a fall. It is quite another thing when a saint has confidence that "God is able to make him stand" (Rom. 14:4).

And not only is God able to support us, but also He keeps a watchful eye upon us in His faithfulness, not permitting us to be tempted beyond a certain limit. The temptations that confront us are "common to man," or such as "belong to man." They are not of some superhuman sort. And again there is with them an issue, or way out. "Way of escape," might lead us to suppose that we may always expect some way by which we may escape the temptation altogether. It is not that, but that God always sees to it that there is a way through by which we may emerge unscathed at the other side. Temptation may be like a long dark tunnel, but there is always visible the light of day at the further end.

Mark, God does not promise a way of escape from the trial, but a way of escape in the trial for the deeply tried mind and heart, so that in this ministration of grace the trial may be borne to the glory of God. What a stay then for poor suffering saints are the words: “GOD IS FAITHFUL.”

Now let us apply this wonderful story. It has been recorded by the Holy Spirit that we might learn and understand the heart and ways of our Lord. We may surely turn to Him in times of stress and sorrow; we may know and treat Him as our Friend in just such times as these are. He waits for us to confide in Him, and if He does not immediately answer our pleadings we may be sure that He is not indifferent to our need, but waits and keeps us waiting because He has some better thing for us than that which we have asked for. It is His will that we should make our requests known to Him and unburden our hearts at His feet; and if the trial through which we are called to pass increases in its intensity, and the sorrow deepens and runs its course, He would have us know that it is not because He loves us less than we thought He did, but more He would have us learn that His love is wiser and truer than our highest thought of it; that it passes knowledge and has our eternal good in view. If we are allowed to pass through trial and to suffer, we may have Mary’s portion, we may know the sympathy of His love which is greater than the greatest sorrow that we could know. It is confiding trust on our part that pleases Him; and it is His love, His sympathy, His friendship, that sustains as in trial and danger. And to this learning of Him there may be a sequel as great in our lives as that recorded of this well-loved family. The knowledge of Him, learned in sorrow and trial, will change us from the self-centred beings we are by nature into such as give Him the supreme place in our thoughts, and lose all thought of self in occupation with Him. If He who was greater than death went into death for us, it would not be a thing to be wondered at if we laid our all in a full surrender at His feet. The wonder, indeed, is that we are so slow in doing it!