Misplaced Trust

“This is what the Lord says: Cursed is the person who trusts in mankind. He makes human flesh his strength, and his heart turns from the Lord.” Jeremiah 17:5 CSB

This verse caught my attention a few days ago. I was thinking about the world we find ourselves in, the events that are going on, and how mankind thinks we have the answers to everything. The thought I had was how different our view and God’s view are. It seems that we put a whole lot of trust in man, hoping that we can save ourselves. We do it medically, with our economy, and with how we define success. We hope that the answers we need will be found in our own intelligence. There are two main problems with that kind of thinking: first, we are the determining factor. Our limited point of view and understanding of the world and life makes our choices often shallow and short term. We as humans have a hard time not being selfish; when we are figuring things out, we want each outcome to benefit us. Second, as the last phrase of the verse says, “our hearts are turned from God.” It doesn’t take much to get us to take our eyes and heart off God and back on ourselves; this has been man’s struggle since Adam and Eve fell in the garden. We find it hard to trust God because He seems slow, and His ways are so different from ours. God is looking at our life with an eternal view while we are thinking of how things affect the here and now.
The question that came to mind as I thought through this verse was this, “Who am I trusting?” We know who we are trusting by how we are choosing to live our lives each day. If I am living in fear, then my hope is in man. If I am at peace with hope, then my trust is in God. How do I know this? Because God does not give us a spirit of fear, he gives us a spirit of hope and peace and a sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7).

-Pastor Tim