Trust and Faith begin with knowledge and the widom of how it works.
As the song "Lean On Me" tells us, God desires us to lean on Him with our faith and trust, to listen to His teachings and learn His ways, because someday God will ask us to do something for Him and He needs to know that He can rely upon us.
Can you remember back to a time in your life when mom or dad first taught you how to ride a bike or how to swim, or maybe the first time you put on a pair of ice skates wanting to skate like you saw on TV.
Your father or mother, helps you get your first real bicycle without training wheels up to the sidewalk and you climb on. Your wanting to learn, but you are also afraid of falling, but you believe in, have faith in, and trust, that mom or dad will be there with you and will not let you fall, but, if you do fall they can make it better.
You grab hold of the handle bars, put your feet to the pedals, and you begin to pump the pedals and away you go, with mom or dad right there behind you keeping you upright. After three or four times up and down the sidewalk with mom or dad, you start to think you can do it without mom or dad and you ask them to let you try. They let go and for a couple of seconds you’re okay, but then just like Peter when he tried to walk on water with Jesus, you become unsure and you fall. Your faith in your own ability fails you.
You end up scraping your hand and your knee and because it hurts you cry a little, but mom or dad pick you up and dust you off and pickup your bike for you, and after giving you a little kiss you are ready to try it again. After four or five more tries, with trial and error causing you to fall each time, you finally manage to master keeping your balance, and you’re now able to ride anywhere. Yes you might fall again but you now know that it is a part of riding your bike so it doesn’t hurt that much any more.
We can take learning about Almighty God in the same light.
As a toddler mom or dad buys you a book called "The Picture Bible" It has nice little stories from the bible in it with lots of pictures to illustrate each story and each night mom or dad read you a story from the book and explain to you the story so you can understand it, and they teach you that this is all about someone very special named "God", and this person named God loves you very very much.
A seed is planted, no bigger than a grain of mustard. There is someone named God and this someone loves me very very much. Mom or dad continue every night to read you the stories from the bible and they also teach you that since God loves you, it would be nice for you to love God back. But wait a minute you can’t see this God so how do you show him or tell him that you love him too. You can’t give him hugs or kisses.
Then mom or dad tell you that even though he is invisible so you can’t see him, you can talk to him and tell him things, and mom or dad teach you about praying. Another seed is planted another seed of "Faith" Each night that little seed of "Faith" in God begins to grow inside of you, and as you learn from the bible book the stories of God, you also begin praying and talking with God telling him special things only you and he share like a secret.
Time passes and you are no longer having mom or dad read to you anymore, because you can now read for yourself. Through mom or dad and God you have learned how to read and not only that, the stories in the bible book now have a special meaning for you, also when you pray and talk to God about things, God sometimes seems to whisper little things to you, things he desires for you to learn and know and because you love God and God loves you you start to listen and pay attention and learn.
As days and weeks and months and years pass by, you and God are best of friends. Early in your teen years you made a commitment to God and to Jesus who you learned from the bible book is God’s Son.You invited God and Jesus into your life as a permanent part of your life, and as you start doing things in your life, like going to school, or college, or starting to work, or doing sports, or getting involved in the arts, whatever your interests happen to be, God is enjoying them with you and helping you to get the most from your endeavors.
Throughout the years your relationship with God continues to grow and because of your faith and trust and love for God, God has entrusted you with the opportunity of doing special things especially for God. Maybe you’ve married and have children of your own, and it is now your duty to teach them as your mom or dad taught you.
Maybe you’re a pastor or an associate pastor, or you’re involved with a music ministry or an outreach program, maybe like me you are evangelizing to all who are willing to listen, read and learn about God through the internet and one on one contact. Maybe you are a business person with your own business and can hire and help others, maybe you are interested in sciences and can find a cure for something.
God will call on you and lean on you for help in projects and He will be right there by your side each step of the way to help you to hold you up so that you don’t fall, and if you choose to do things other than His way and happen to fall, God will be there to pick you up dust you off and get you back on track again just as your mom or dad did when you fell of your bike years ago as you learned to ride.
I applied my child-like way of looking at things to illustrate my point in a simplistic way. I hope nobody minds.
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