TRUST
IN GOD

WHEN I was boy growing up, I used to love to watch the telephone man. He was like superman to me because he could climb up on the telephone pole. He just seemed to be good at hustling up and down that thing.

I got a chance to talk to a telephone man one day. I was trying to find out how he managed getting up and down that pole so easily. He explained that, first of all, his shoes had spikes. Secondly, he explained that, in climbing, he made it a point to rest against his belt so that he could get a firm implant with his shoes.

The telephone man admitted that as a young man he really didn’t know how to do it, nor did he trust the belt. Instead of resting in the belt, he would slide down the post. As a result, he got quite a few splinters.

Many of us, because we refuse to trust God, keep getting splinters in our lives—things that keep sticking us that we can’t get over, things that keep jabbing us that we can’t get around. We will continue to get splinters until we learn to trust in God and to put all of our confidence in His Word.998

[Bible, Sufficiency of; Self-Sufficiency, Sin of]

Prov. 3:5–6; John 14:1

WHAT we need today is a generation of Christians who will have the guts to believe that following God has pleasure. It’s not a boring life.

There is a story of a kite that was flying and the kite began to talk to itself. The kite said, “If only I could get rid of this string. If the string wasn’t holding me back, then I could fly. I could fly above the clouds. I could fly as high as I wanted to. If I could get rid of this string, there would be nothing holding me back. I’m limited by this string.”

One day the kite got its wish. The string broke and the kite came crashing down. What the kite did not realize was that the same string that kept it down kept it up. Cutting the string did not make it freer.

We will always head toward disaster when we cut the string of dependence on God in search of more pleasure. The same string that seems to hold you down also keeps you flying high. God wants us to trust him and let Him hold the string. Staying connected to Him keeps us from falling.999

[Independence, Consequences of; Self-Sufficiency, Danger of]

Luke 15:11–24