Trust and Do
“Trust in the Lord, and do good; so you shall dwell in the land, and you shall be fed” (Psalm 37:3).
Trust and do are words which go well together, in the order in which the Holy Spirit has placed them. We should have faith, and that faith should work. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, sothat no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:8-10).
Trust in God sets us upon holy doing: we trust God for good, and then we do good. We do not sit still because we trust, but we arouse ourselves and expect the Lord to work through us and by us. It is not ours to worry and do evil but to trust and do good. We neither trust without doing nor do without trusting.
Adversaries would root us out if they could; but by trusting and doing we dwell in the land. We will not go into Egypt, but we will remain in Immanuel’s land – the providence of God, the Canaan of covenant love. We are not so easily to be got rid of as the Lord’s enemies suppose. They cannot thrust us out nor stamp us out: where God has given us a name and a place, there we abide.
But what about the supply of our necessities? The Lord has put a “verily” into this promise. As sure as God is true, His people shall be fed. It is theirs to trust and to do, and it is the Lord’s to do according to their trust. If not fed by ravens, or fed by an Obadiah, or fed by a widow, yet they shall be fed somehow.
(PR)