Regarding Trust

Romans 5:1-5 (ESV)
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.  More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

When I look from a distance, I don't see the hard.

When I drive by a wheat field in Indiana, there is peace and beauty and white clouds gracing blue skies.

I don't see the farmer up at 4:30 in the morning, the dust flying from behind his tractor as he plows the field.

I don't see the bills piled up on the kitchen counter, screaming for attention.

I don't see the worry-lined face of his wife when he pushes himself to the limit in the heat of summer, working desperately to provide for his family.

And I don't see the callouses on his hands from years of hard physical labor and the way he falls into bed at night, exhausted.  

I only see the fruit, the beauty and bounty that his blood, sweat and tears have produced.

Trust is like that, you know.  It is built by years of piling stones of remembrance, one upon another, as we learn to rely on God.  Trust does not come easily or naturally.  It is the result of being pressed and pushed to the limit and reaching the limit and then, at last, realizing God is there, carrying us beyond the limit into the place of peace.  The place where the fields bow under the breeze and we see that, once again, He was faithful.

Trust is sitting quietly by the riverside, clean and calm after a storm that washed away all the dead branches that had fallen and the leaves molding on the water's edge.  It is knowing He brought us through the storm for this moment, this breathtaking moment of communion with Him.

Trust is coming down from the mountain, knowing the peak rises behind us.  It is believing that the valley is part of the beauty of the mountaintop.  It is remembering all the valleys we have trudged through with muddy shoes and tired legs and the feeling we have when we reached the summit and sat, just sat and looked and breathed the sweet mountain air deep into our lungs.  

Trust is a moment of looking back and forward all at the same time.  Remembering His faithfulness in the past causes us to trust He will be faithful today and tomorrow.  It is grace, grace in which we stand through the blood of Jesus, that allows us to rejoice because we have hope, blessed hope that when we reach our limit God will be glorified.

When we reach our limits He will carry us beyond them, fill us with His love and then..in that state of total dependence and trust...we will reflect the radiance of the Father.