Worship

Scripture

When I was in junior high and high school I made an annual trip with my youth group to church camp each year. It was always one of the highlights of my summer-a chance to get away from our hometown for a week, connect with other fellow believers (including those of the opposite sex), and most importantly grow in our relationship with God. 

Part of the camp routine for anyone who is not familiar involved recreation time. Quite often this time was filled with team building exercises that each church youth group participated in together. Many of the activities were out on a ropes course and one of the most memorable ones was called the trust fall. The trust fall involved a platform that was about 8-10 feet off the ground that a person would stand on and fall off backwards into a group of 6-7 people lined up to catch them. The most important part of the trust fall was everyone had a specific job-follow the rules and no one gets hurt. More often than not things worked out just fine, illustrating how much we should be able to trust and/or count on one another. 

On rare occasions people left the trust fall injured and it accomplished the opposite of building trust. For example, if the person falling backward decided to flail their arms as they fell backward instead of keeping them tightly tucked into their body, someone on the ground ended up with a bloody nose or a black eye. Looking back on this exercise I think it’s a pretty accurate representation of placing trust in people. When we trust others a majority of the time things work out fine, but on rare occasions we can pay dearly for putting our trust in human beings just like the trust fall gone wrong. This can taint our view of trust forever.

In 2 Samuel 14-16 we see King David’s trust in his son Absalom being put to the test. Absalom’s revolt against his father causes extreme hardship in Israel as well as the relationship between father and son. I believe we can learn something about trust and relationships from this part of the story. The bottom line is people will let us down time and time again. If our ability to trust is dependent on human beings we won’t be able to trust anyone as far as we can throw them. Instead our view of trust must be shaped by our relationship with God. It is in him that we place our trust and because of his unfailing love we are able to trust others and operate with the same grace that he has shown us when others let us down-because let us down they will!

Prayer

HONOR GOD

There is nothing too big for our God. Honor His greatness!

ASK GOD