Reason to Trust
by Shawn McEvoy, Crosswalk.com Managing Editor
For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
Colossians 1:16-17
Trust is the foundation of every relationship in life, but what happens when loved ones are unfaithful, a friend betrays you, or a co-worker sabotages you? Even smaller misdeeds - like a home repair worker who fails to show up when promised, then overcharges you - can threaten your ability to trust. Unfortunately, our fallen world is full of reasons not to trust. Yet God still calls on us to trust - not through blind faith, but through the wisdom He gives.
In today's verse, Paul tells us the ultimate reason to trust in Christ. If you've ever felt like everything were coming apart in your life, or like you personally were coming unglued, you can know that "in Him all things hold together."
The Matthew Henry commentary says the following regarding this verse: "The whole creation is kept together by the power of the Son of God, and made to consist in its proper frame. It is preserved from disbanding and running into confusion."
One day about a year ago I arrived early at the office. I had gotten my coffee, and I took my Bible off the shelf and turned to this same verse. I was pondering it when a colleague walked by and asked, "What's the verse of the day?" I read it to her. She smiled, and as she was walking away said, "Sounds like glue. We serve a gluey God."
That was an interesting phrase for me...
My father passed away in 2001. Since then, my wife and I have observed, there has been a gradual erosion of the bonds of my once-tight nuclear family. The center has not held. The things we have in common are disappearing. The reasons for visiting each other have become fewer. "I think your dad was clearly the glue," my wife said to me a couple years back.
Many books have been written about the correlation between how trusting we are or how we see God, and the kind of relationship we had with our fathers.
The movie The Pursuit of Happyness was, for me, just another example of that notion. I love the scene in the homeless shelter where Chris, the character played by Will Smith, is getting his son ready for bed in this tiny room, a room he, Chris, is about to leave to work on something out in the hallway. His son is scared, so Chris asks him over and over, "Do you trust me?" and tells his young son how he's still right there, doing what's best, and able to hear when he calls.
Only thing is, in that scene, it's the child who is totally trusting, and the parent who isn't quite sure of himself. Whereas in our relationship with God, He is the source of absolute trustworthiness (nothing will spin out of control), while we, even when asked over and over if we trust, are often unsure.
A trusting father is glue. He created your world, and while you're a child his job is to hold everything together. To keep you grounded, and keep things from spinning of out of control.
Think about all the ways God could have described Himself to us, and then consider just how many times throughout the entire Bible he has himself described as Abba, Daddy, Father... and how he used His only son to accomplish the restoration of that relationship, so that in "all things" we can lean back in trust.
Jesus came so that you could get your father back. No longer will things spin out of control, unglued and unrelated, but you can know the one who's Got the Whole World in His Hands, and develop a "no matter what" faith more than a "what if" one.
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