Trust is a choice that either lays dividends or becomes the kind of ‘stuff’ that fuels regret.
Of course, trust can’t be ‘stuff’ since it’s abstract; but abstraction here moves into the realm of actuality when one stakes bets – not money of course! – but sometimes real ‘stuff’ that money can buy, to demonstrate one’s trust.
Someone might deprive himself of a well-deserved holiday in order to fund training for someone else who cannot afford the financial cost. That is evidence of trust. The giver trusts that the recipient is more than an idle taker, someone who will grow her talent into what money cannot buy, thereby proving the donor’s trust, worthy of its investment.
On the other hand, a costly gift can be totally misplaced, not in line with the injunction, “don’t cast your pearls before swine!
But all of this was just an aside. I warned you that my thoughts are allowed to veer laterally, even incline upwards, or slope downwards during these so-called “reflections”. Don’t say you weren’t warned.
Let me try and veer back to what the psalmist wrote about how trust (not misplaced trust) pays off.
In verse 2, he says to the Lord, “You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you.”
I say, “Apart from you, I have no good. Apart from you, I am no good. Apart from you I do no good. So, I better trust you”. And when I do, I often surprise me.
I discover that “The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places, and that I have a goodly heritage (verse 6). Things always seem to work out in the end so the boundaries that would have prevented me keep me in profitable places, experiencing goodly consequences that come with the instruction- “the right counsel.”
9 Therefore my heart is glad, and my soul rejoices; my body also rests secure.
Wow! Heart and soul, body mind and spirit derive the benefits of trust that is rightly placed. My benefactor deserves all trust. God will not hand me over to hell but rather show the path to pleasantness- to abundant joy and unlimited pleasure in the protective refuge who takes care of my concerns.
I agree with the man. Pleasures of any other god are not worth the attention. Don’t drink of another cup. It may drunken you and poison you, so you don’t wake up to a second chance to know what you missed had you trusted God in the first place.