HERE'S A DIFFERENCE between trusting God to deliver us and trusting God to do what's best. They're not always one and the same. It's easy to trust God when we believe He will deliver us. But it can be quite another matter if we're called to surrender our lives. Sometimes God in His wisdom may decide to leave us out on a limb. It's at these times we're tempted to fly in His face: "God, don't You understand that I'm doing Your business? How come I'm not seeing Your presence?"

Trusting is another dimension of faith-the dimension that makes us proceed undaunted even though we know there are other possibilities.

But trust can't be commanded or compelled. Nobody ever trusts because they're told to. "Oh, leave it to me," we tell our friends, "trust me." "Trust me, I'll be there for you." But when you come right down to it, trust must be earned. If you rely on a person and they come through for you, then next time you'll be more willing to do it again. And by the third time you are ready to say, "OK, those two occasions they made good on their word, so I'm gonna trust them now." And trusting becomes easier and easier as that individual builds up a track record. They've earned your trust.

But now the critical question: Does God have a good track record?

Would My Answer Shock You?
You say, "Yes, God has a good track record." I say, "No."

How many times did you go to God and ask Him to heal a person who was sick-a friend, a relative-and that person died anyway? How many times did you go to God and say, "God, I'm gonna be faithful in tithes and offerings, and my financial management is now Your problem"? Yet in reality you found you were digging yourself deeper and deeper into a financial hole, and now you find yourself in a serious financial predicament notwithstanding your faithfulness in tithes and offerings.

I was Just Wondering

The Bible says, "Ask and you will receive" (John 16:24,NIV paraphrase). The Bible also says, "Prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it" (Mal. 3:10). Yet I submit that God does not have a good track record in terms of giving us what we ask for. And why so? Because the Bible does not say that the Lord will pour out the blessing that you asked for. It does not promise that we'll receive exactly what we ask for.

You may refer to the text that says, "God shall give them the desires of their heart" (Ps. 37:4, paraphrase). But it doesn't always happen that way. In Mark 10:35-40 James and John, the sons of thunder, asked Jesus for the desire of their hearts, namely, a prominent position in His kingdom. And Jesus said, "You don't know what you are asking" (Mark 10:38, NIV). If you get the desire of your heart from God, it's probably because the desire of your heart is synonymous with the desire of God's heart for you.

You see, the exercise of coming to God, of asking God, is intended really to develop faith. And as indicated earlier, there's a difference between it and trust. Faith is believing that God's resources are available to me. In other words, if we have faith, we'll be saying, "Lord, I believe that whatever You have can be mine. You have promised to make it available to me." That's faith-believing God's promises.

But trust, which must go hand in hand with faith, says, "Lord, I commit myself to Your care and keeping." That's trust. Faith is believing what God can do and what He is willing to do. But trust says, "I commit myself to Your care and keeping. Do with me, Lord, whatsoever You will." Faith is believing God can push a wheelbarrow on a tightrope across the Niagara Falls. Trust is getting on board that wheelbarrow. Faith is believing that William Tell is so skilled with a bow and arrow that he can shoot straight through an apple that's sitting on someone else's head. Trust is being that person with the apple on your head.

When God Fails to "Answer"
We make all kinds of excuses for God. God always answers prayer. God always comes through for me. Indeed, I can tell you story after story about how God came through for me. But we often don't even know what to ask God for, what to pray for.

Our problem is that when we pray, we make the mistake of predetermining the outcome. When I pray for the sick, I say, "Lord, make this person well!" But then I don't know if that's God's will, do I? It's all right to wish the person would get well. Sickness and death were never part of God's plan, and it's all right to say, "Lord, if it be Your will, heal this person." You want the person to survive. But we must leave it up to God to decide how He will handle the case.

Sometimes we find ourselves beating our heads against the wall-praying, agonizing, fasting for some elderly person who's done their time on earth. Meanwhile, the Lord is trying to put a tired soul to rest. We love them, yes, but we need to let them go! I'm not saying we mustn't pray for people, but I'm saying that if we really trust and understand God, we'll leave it up to Him to handle each case as He sees fit. Sometimes we're so shortsighted, looking for one particular blessing while the Lord is blessing us all around and we can't see it.

You may be having financial difficulties even though you're paying tithe. But then the Lord may be blessing you in so many other ways! Sometimes the Lord, in response to our prayer, says, "Not so." Sometimes He says, "Not now." Sometimes He says, "Not you!" Brothers and sisters, there are many of us whom God can't trust with an extra five bucks. But He blesses us anyway. So I'm here to say, "Be faithful in your tithes and offerings, and leave it to God to decide how He is going to bless you."

Trusting in God implicitly means trusting that God knows what to do, when to do it, how to do it, and for whom to do it. I remember that some years ago, in Trinidad, one of our ministers-a good friend and colleague of mine-fell ill. In all my years, not only as a minister but as a member of the church, I've never seen the church pray as it prayed when Pastor David Wilson fell ill.

Now, you have to know that Pastor Wilson was a health freak. (He was my friend; I can say that.) This man was almost fanatical about good health. Wouldn't eat this, wouldn't drink that, always exercising. Now he'd fallen ill, stricken with cancer. And the more the church prayed, the weaker he got. Seasons of prayer were organized. Groups of churches got together for all-night vigils, praying and singing and begging God. He died anyway.

Sometimes we don't understand how God is working, and we're tempted to stop trusting. In the case of Pastor Wilson, it took me a long time to understand (and I'm still not sure I know all the reasons) why the story ended that way.

But we can know that God is going to come through for us in some way or other. Very often it's not the way we expect. We like to tell stories with happy endings-of those who have been faithful in tithes and offerings, and now they're prosperous. "I lost my job because I decided to keep the Sabbath, and now I have a better job with more pay." "I prayed for a sick person, and thank God, today they're in good health." "I prayed for my husband, who was drinking and beating me up. Now he has given his heart to Jesus, and he is baptized. Praise the Lord!"

These are all good stories, and we ought to tell them. But we seem afraid to make God look bad, so to speak. So we tell only those stories with happy endings. We shouldn't be reluctant or afraid, however, to stand up in the church and testify about how God is testing and trying us. Testing our faith and trying our patience. We shouldn't be afraid to let the church know how long and hard we've been praying for something, and we can't get a glimmer of an answer. We shouldn't be afraid to tell how every road we turn onto seems to be leading to a dark, endless, hopeless alley; and we have to change direction again. We pray and fast for years and years and years, but the problem continues, with no end in sight.

Sometimes God seems deafeningly silent when we pray to Him. But He knows best.

What My Girl Taught Me
We had a little bunk bed at home, a double-decker, and my little girl would be on the upper level. Time for her to take a bath, so I go to the bed and say, "Come, sweetheart," and put my hands out. She walks to the edge of the bed and looks down at the floor. It seems like miles away, and she knows she doesn't want to fall down there. She has no concept of broken limbs and hospitals and possible death, but somehow she knows there's danger there. But she sees Daddy's arms, gives me a smile, and then throws herself. "Daddy," she says, "it's up to you to catch me." What a lesson in trust!

My little girl has enjoyed that game so much that she wants to do it all the time. The next day she's up on the bed. I'm in the room, busy doing something else. And my wife suddenly says, "Look!" I spin around, and she's already in midair, believing her daddy will catch her!

We may explain that away on the basis of the fact that she's a child and doesn't know any better-doesn't know how fallible her daddy is.

But we have a Daddy who will never let us down.

It's normal and human to be afraid. You think those Hebrew boys weren't afraid when they faced that fiery furnace? They must have been. And they surely knew there was an out. But they refused to take it. "King," they said, "we have no intention of bowing down to any image. Don't even waste the time to give us another chance." How is our own faith and confidence in God? We need to have an abiding confidence in God that in whatever way, He will come through for us, even if we have to die.

Remember Jesus Christ. He was put in a spot in which His faith and trust were called to the severest test. A bitter cup poured out before Him; His own humanity shrank from the ordeal. But He also knew that it was the will of God. "Lord," He finally said, "if it is Your will that these people cannot be saved by any other means, I will drink the last bitter dregs."

Someday, Someday
So in our testimony we should ask others to help us pray that we might be faithful until the day when God in His supreme wisdom and in His own time decides to reveal His will and answer our prayer. We should ask for prayer that we never give up, that we'd ever renew our determination to say, like Job, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him" (Job 13:15). "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, because God is with me" (Ps. 23:4, paraphrase).

And remember this: Any testimony of a faithful Christian that does not have a happy ending has not yet ended.

Sometimes the Lord is long in His way of working with us so to speak. Sometimes He tries us to our wit's end. We sometimes feel as if we're on the verge of insanity. And then we have to buoy our spirits up by the fact that He will not permit any burden to come that will be too much for us to bear. And He reminds us that we do not carry our burdens on our own. He is there to assist us, and He is always available. In the words of that old-time hymn:

"Not now, but in the coming years, It may be in the better land, We'll read the meaning of our tears, And there, sometime, we'll understand."

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Keith Chin-Aleong is assistant professor in the Department of Humanities at Caribbean Union College in Port of Spain, Trinidad.