V–alidating our Trust in God – Part 1

This newest series of messages on Internet Pastor is called “V-alidating our Trust in God”.

One of the most important things in our Christian walk is learning that we can trust God. That He is faithful and true and has a plan and a purpose for our lives. Sometimes, when things seem to be all messed up, we want to go to the big question “Why Me Lord?”

God will take the situations in our life (both good and bad) and use them to help us learn to trust Him more and more. He V-alidates our trust in Him. How does He v-alidate? That is what we will explore in the weeks ahead, but for today we will say that He v-alidates with the following:

1. V-ision

God has created you for a purpose and He will also give you a dream, a vision, about what He wants you to do, about your part in His story.

Imagine how Noah and Abraham and Joseph might have felt when God gave them the v-ision He had for them

Noah was to build an ark.
Abraham was to become the father of a great nation.
Joseph was to be a world leader that would save his people.

Proverbs 29:18 (KJV)
18 Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.

2. V-enture

The v-ision by itself is not enough. At some point you have to put it into action. You have to v-enture out. You have to make the decision to go for it. A lot of people have a vision but they never v-enture out.

Matthew 14:28-29 (NIV)
28 “Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.” 29 “Come,” he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus.

If you want to walk on water, you’ve got to get out of the boat.

3. V-ariables

One thing that you can always count on is that there is a time lapse between receiving the v-ision and seeing it fulfilled. Waiting is probably the biggest v-ariable you will have to deal with. And we are not good waiters.

Habakkuk 2:3 (KJV)
3 For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.

Generally, dealing with the v-ariables will have you asking the question “When?” For a people that don’t like to wait, waiting on God can be very frustrating and yet God is never in a hurry. When you read the Gospels you will not find a situation where it appears that Jesus was in a hurry. He was on God’s Daytimer, and God’s Daytimer and your daytimer are not the same.

120 years went by from the time that Noah started building the ark until the rain started.

Abraham didn’t have Isaac until He was 100, fourteen years after he had gotten tired of waiting on God and went and had Ishmael

Joseph’s path to leadership after years of slavery and prison.

4. V-alley

Not only will you have the v-ariable of waiting, while you wait, you will have problems that arise, you will go through v-alleys. These v-alleys are usually of two kinds, circumstances and critics.

Joseph’s brothers were critical of Joseph’s dreams and sold him into slavery. He is then falsely accused of rape and tossed into prison.

Can you imagine what Noah must have gone through building the world’s largest floating zoo?

1 Peter 1:6-7 (NIV)
6 In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that your faith–of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire–may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.

And there is usually a point, when you have waited and waited and dealt with critics and circumstances and it seems like you v-ision …..

5. V-aporize

Things go from difficult to impossible.

2 Corinthians 1:8-9 (NIV)
8 We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. 9 Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.

This is actually a pretty good place to be. As you can see, even the Apostle Paul had to go through this process. We often need to be at the point where we no longer rely on ourselves, but only on God who raises the dead.

6. V-ictory

2 Corinthians 1:10 (NIV)
10 He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us,

At the end, God comes through and there is v-ictory. Abraham and Sarah have Isaac even though they are way past the age of childbearing. Joseph is taken from prison to becoming the de-facto leader of Egypt, and on and on…

God loves to turn vaporizations into victory, the same way He turned a crucifixion into a resurrection. Because He gets the credit. He gets the glory.

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