In God we Trust

In God we trust...not as easy a proposition for us humans who are so prone to trust in other things especially our wealth and riches. Even those who claim to trust in the Lord may find themselves drifting into the trust of other things. We know that has happened by our anxious response when confronted with the prospect of losing those things in which we tend to trust. The man who crumbles when he loses his job begins to understand that his trust may have been displaced.
This has always been a temptation for man. Job 31:24-28 speaks of this. Job says, "If I have made gold my trust, or called fine gold my confidence, if I have rejoiced because my wealth was abundant or because my hand had found much,....this also would be an iniquity to be punished by judges for I would have been false to God above." Job knew very clearly of this temptation and sought to avoid slipping into it.
Jesus (Luke 16) tells a parable of the rich man and Lazarus. The rich man trusted in his riches, but how foolish that was. This inappropriate trust blinded him to his real poverty and landed him in the eternal flame. He had learned too late that the riches in which he trusted were not true riches at all. Lazarus, poor on this earth, had found true riches only in the Lord.
Since trusting in riches is so common to man and has such drastic consequences, how can we avoid such a misplaced trust? Actually, God in His mercies and grace, is always working to direct our trust to Him. In 2 Corinthians 1 Paul makes this amazing statement. He says, "For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead." You see what God does is He presses in on us. He brings difficulty into our life, so much so that we begin to see that nothing we have - no riches or wealth or intellect or whatever - is sufficient to get us through. At those moments God has our attention and we begin to really place our trust in Him, and Him alone.
It is interesting to note that in Exodus 13:17 it says that "God did not lead them by way of the land of the Philistines, although that was near. For God said, 'Lest the people change their minds when they see war and return to Egypt.'" In other words God did not lead the people directly into the promised land from Egypt though that would have been the most direct route. Instead, he led them into the wilderness. And why did He do this? Because at this point in their journey they were not yet trusting in the Lord. If they had been confronted with the enemies awaiting them they would have looked to their own resources and then in fear sought to return to Egypt. God needed to take them through the wilderness and teach them that He is trustworthy. This lesson in the desert took over 40 years, but when their trust was transferred from self to God, they went on to possess what the Lord intended for them.
The same is true for us. God may need to bring affliction in our lives to convince us that nothing we have - not riches or wealth or status or knowledge - is worthy of our trust. In fact these things can blind us to the poverty of our soul. Once convinced of this, we can then be ready in full confidence to declare, "In God we trust". May God so work in our lives to show us any false trusts we might have and teach us that He alone is worthy of our trust.