https://vimeo.com/77878850

I'm Wayne Jacobson, and this is Engage. You know I think early in my journey I misunderstood what faith was. Read scriptures like without faith it is impossible to please God, or if you have enough faith you can move this mountain, and I got the idea that faith was something I needed to produce for God. I needed to come up with enough confidence that God would do things the way I wanted and if I could, God would actually do them. And so faith to me just became another religious work like all the other things you've got to do to keep God happy. In the last few years of my journey though I've been learning that faith is something quite different. Faith, maybe if we used a different word for faith it would help us understand that. Faith is not some internal willingness to believe something or pretend I do even if I don't on the inside. If we used the word trust it would take us to a little different dimension because trust makes it more of a relational word. There really isn't a word in the English that goes for the Greek verb for faith. That's why we talk about faith as a noun, but not faith as a verb. We don't faith something, but we do trust, and I think trust is a better word here because trust invokes a relationship. Trust is not how much I'm willing to believe someone. Trust is the fruit of a relationship. The more I know someone, the more I know they love me, care about me, would lay down their life for me, the more trust I'd have in them. Trust is the byproduct of a growing relationship. And I don't think it's meant to be any different with Jesus either. I think he meant to lead us into that same kind of reality. In other words, trust is something he would win in us. I like to say now, be aware of anyone who demands that you trust them. It's a scary thing. When someone has to demand that you trust them to prove your loyalty, to prove your faithfulness to God, whether it's a spiritual leader or someone else, you've got to know they don't understand trust. And because they don't, they're probably not worthy of it. Trust isn't given, trust is won. And God began at the cross to win us back to himself. That we can trust that he, in fact, loves us. And he's willing to walk in life with us. And he's willing to lead us into his reality, his truth, his life, the way he wants to. Faith, if it's just a religious work from our standpoint, then we're going to try to manipulate God to give us what we want. And I guess that's why a lot of people have a difficult time with trust. They've read scriptures about God that made him scary. And so our misinterpretations of Scripture don't lead us to be endeared to the Father in a way in which trust would grow. Also, a lot of believers have a lot of unanswered prayers and unanswered hopes and dreams. And it's tough to trust God if he doesn't do the things we think he should do or the things we think love would compel him to do. But trust doesn't grow on that basis. Trust doesn't grow by getting God to do what I want. Trust grows when I live inside a relationship with him. Come to know I'm loved enough that I can put my whole life into his hands and believe that whatever he wants to do, whatever he has in the mind and for my life, it will spill out. And it will happen. And I found out that his ways of working were entirely different than my own. In my early days, I wanted life to be certain. I didn't want there to be pain and brokenness. I didn't want other things in my life. And so I would try to pray all the pain, all the need, all the risk out of my life, all the fears even of uncertain futures and trying to get my future in a way where I wouldn't have to trust him ultimately. And people who go on this journey who have a fear of uncertainty or are anxious about it, I always say to them, you're on the wrong journey. If what you were hoping God would give you is increased certainty, what God gives us instead is an increased rest in him in the midst of the uncertainty and the chaos of living in this age. I guess it was my hope as a younger man that if I really loved God, believed him, he would bless me. And my life wouldn't have chaos in it. At 60, I'm a little wiser than that. Despite some of my best decisions at times and despite some of my most ardent passions, life doesn't shape out the way we want it to. I don't think God was ever going to fix all of our chaos. What he wanted to do was be in the chaos with us. What he wanted to do and invite us into a different way of living where we wouldn't be so zeroed in on man's interests, what I think, what I want, how I want to accomplish it. But we'd really be focused on how God makes himself known in the world and how God works in me, knowing that what he wants to do in my life is far better than anything I would even choose for myself. At this season of my life, I will tell you, I'm not doing anything I imagined I'd be doing as a young man with all the vision and passion I had and what I hoped God would do in my life. Life has sorted out very differently than I dreamed. But I wouldn't trade anything that God has brought into my life today for anything I hoped for back in the past. This life as God's allowed it to unfold in my life, far from perfect, far from everything I want. But it's allowed me to know him in the ups and downs in life, to trust him as things unfold, to not have to arrange every detail of my life. I don't even get rental cars and all those things nailed down when I leave anymore because I ended up on too many trips with other people who were driving me somewhere who wanted and needed the conversation and how powerful it was. I want to encourage you. Don't try to give God your faith. Don't try to get more faith. Don't try to go into that routine because even scripture indicates just a little bit. We'll do a grain of mustard seed is all you need. What our faith does need to do is be based in God and who he is, that it's him that we're trusting. That Jesus as the author and the finisher of my faith wins me into a deeper reality. That happens over time when you follow him. You don't try to save yourself and he does something amazing. Then you learn not to save yourself. The reason I don't book six months, two years out on my travel schedule anymore is because I miss things God wanted because Wayne trying to provide for himself had over planned everything. If you want to grow and trust, if you want that to be a reality that happens in you, follow him. Get a heart for his agenda. Watch how he unfolds stuff when you stop saving yourself and then you'll find trust to be the most incredible joy of learning to live with him.