Something New - Word of the Month – Attributes of God

 

Attribute n. - a quality or feature regarded as a characteristic or inherent part of someone or something.

A blogging friend of mine chose a “word of the year” to focus on.  The word she chose is “Trust” and she desires to learn to trust God more this year of her life.  This is a good word and worthwhile goal!

This is something I’ve never done myself.  I think this is fine for anyone who wants to do something like that.  I wouldn’t commit to something like that myself because I know myself.  I’m not sure I’d have what it takes to focus on one word all year. :-/  Even if I displayed it in a prominent place I’d probably stop thinking about it for days at a time before the year was over.

But it got me to thinking. And maybe because of my post from last Sunday I thought about considering an attribute of God each month and putting up a different attribute for us to consider and think about.  My intention is not to deal with deep theological thoughts and five dollar words. But I hope we can pick up something to take with us through the month and meditate upon.  Mostly, I hope we can get a bigger view of who and what God is.

Because of my blogging friend’s word, “TRUSTWORTHY” was the first word that came to mind.  “Trustworthy” is so easy to define that it doesn’t require a lot of explanation.  Simply it means “worthy of trust”.

“Trustworthy” does not appear in the King James Bible, but here are a couple verses about trusting in the Lord.  Of course, many could be listed!

Psalms 9:9-10  The LORD also will be a refuge for the oppressed, a refuge in times of trouble.  And they that know thy name will put their trust in thee: for thou, LORD, hast not forsaken them that seek thee.

Psalms 5:11-12  But let all those that put their trust in thee rejoice: let them ever shout for joy, because thou defendest them: let them also that love thy name be joyful in thee.  For thou, LORD, wilt bless the righteous; with favour wilt thou compass him as with a shield.

Is God worthy of our trust?  Silly question, right?  And yet, how do we act sometimes?  When things go “wrong” and challenges arise, when we don’t know what to do or how to do it, how often do we forget that God is TRUSTWORTHY at all times?  Psalms 62:8  Trust in him at all times; ye people, pour out your heart before him: God is a refuge for us. Selah.

How glibly we quote verses like Proverbs 3:5-6 about trusting in the Lord with all thine heart, and yet how very hard it is to do that!  And, how easy it is to accuse others of “having trust issues” in relation to humans, and forget how often we don’t trust God!  You know, I think all “trust issues” would be resolved if we could learn to really TRUST the Lord.

BUT – our failure to trust doesn’t change the fact that He is Always TRUSTWORTHY!

That came up in the study from last week too, didn’t it?  God doesn’t need our “affirmation” of His goodness to be good!  “He’s good all by Himself.”  Well, so too, He doesn’t need our trust to be Trustworthy.  Our lack of trust has no effect upon His trustworthiness.  He is worthy of our trust whether we trust or not!  I think we’re going to find this true of a lot of the attributes of God.  I expect it’s true of all of them. :-)

It seems that if we could really grasp the realization that God is completely and utterly worthy of our trust, we would have less difficulty in trusting Him first and foremost, and then thinking about the details.  Too often, we see all the details, we panic and we doubt that He can work things out for good (Rom. 8:28). 

Remember that the opposite of trust is distrust.  I think that we’d hardly want to say to God outright, “I don’t trust you to take care of me, or my family, or this situation.”  Yet how often our actions and speech and attitudes betray distrustfulness of the very Savior who gave His life to save us from hell!  When I think of it like this I’m amazed at myself and us that we could trust Him to save our eternal souls from an eternal hell and yet not to manage the details of our everyday lives on this earth!  Why are we so distrustful?!

The remainder of this month, let’s try to think about the fact that God is completely trustworthy.  He knows what He is doing in our lives from start to finish.  He knows all that we will have to deal with this year and He is infinitely capable of handling it, and of helping us as we trust in Him.  He is not like mankind.  He is completely worthy of our trust, and because of that, we don’t need to fear – not anything.  Psalms 27:1  The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the LORD is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?

We may trust Him fully all for us to do;
They who trust Him wholly find Him wholly true.
- Frances Ridley Havergal

Nahum 1:7  The LORD is good, a strong hold in the day of trouble; and he knoweth them that trust in him.