If I told you that you needed to trust in God, you might assume that you already do. After all, you've went to church, or at least you did before a global pandemic hit our planet.
Now you watch church and you're doing your best to balance the realities of our new normal with the lessons on trust you remember from your past. After all, God never said you shouldn't go see a doctor, and I'm not advocating that you only practice home healthcare.
But considering all the many amenities available to us, even during a worldwide crisis, it's fair to ask ourselves if we're living lives of trust or simply living with enough less to differentiate ourselves from those gluttonous monsters who never acknowledge God.
Do We Really Want to Compare?
If comparisons are your game, let's play this game we can't possibly hope to win.
Would you spend 100 years of your life building a boat in preparation for a worldwide flood? Never mind that Noah had previously never heard of a boat, rain, or flood.
Would you bring five stones to a sword fight? Ok, maybe some of you possess that much testosterone, but seriously?
Would you walk up to a widow, find out she is planning the last meal for she and her son, and still ask her to bring you some food and water first? If this doesn't take trust on your part, you might be a jerk.
The truth is there are plenty of people who have modeled trust to a level that we have never even had to consider. But all the examples pale in comparison to one man. We'll call him Zeke.
He Cooked With What?
Ezekiel was a priest turned prophet. Having been a priest, it meant he patterned his life after God's laws, keeping himself clean. This was important back then, because being considered clean meant he was able to worship in God's house versus being prohibited from entering the temple. (It was kind of like the signs we see these days, reminding us that a mask is needed to enter this building or that store.)
Zeke lived in the days when God was passing judgment on Israel and Judah for being disobedient nations. God told Zeke he wanted him to go into the city, lie on his left side every day for 390 days, one day for every year Israel had sinned. Then after that, he would need to lie on his right side for 40 days, to represent every year Judah had sinned.
But that's not the worst part. God also told Zeke what he was going to eat, a type of bread. Ezekiel 4:12 says this, "Eat the food as you would a barley cake; bake it in the sight of the people, using human excrement for fuel."
Hold up. What are using for fuel? But God didn't stutter. Human dung. Poopie. Where was Ezekiel supposed to get the poo? The Bible doesn't say. (Feel free to comment and tell me if you'd rather use your own poo or borrow from a friend.)
Cooking over human poo is where Ezekiel started to argue with God. 'Whoa, God, I have always been clean when it comes to food. Surely you're not going to make me cook this food over human feces.'
So God said Zeke didn't need to cook using human feces for fuel. (Whew!) "Very well," [God] said, "I will let you bake your bread over cow manure instead of human excrement." I don't know if this was supposed to be better, but we have no record of Zeke arguing this time.
Do you think Ezekiel thought trusting in God would lead to him lying on his side for the better part of a year and a half while baking bread over cow poo? Not likely! Trusting in God is sometimes crazy. But he did it.
What is Your Level of Trust?
I'll bring up the matter again. You need to trust God. Are you still super-quick to say that you do? Are you cooking-with-poo level of trusting?
There is some good reason to do so. Isaiah 26:3 gives us this promise; "You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you."
This sounds like a good deal. We trust God. He provides perfect peace. That is something in short supply these days.
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