Trust God, Not Yourself

Show of hands: How many of you have ever heard the phrase, “God will never give you more than you can handle”?

It’s a pretty popular phrase… usually it is said when someone is going through something really hard… it’s of course meant to be an encouragement.

Like, “Don’t worry… you’ve got this.”

But it’s one of those Christiany-SOUNDING phrases that goes DIRECTLY against the teaching of the Bible.

You see, our culture tends to think of the Christian life as, “God thinks I’m awesome even when I don’t see how awesome I am. And so he gives me trials to show me how awesome I am at overcoming them… OR to make me PROVE that I am awesome enough to deserve his favor.”

THAT is ACTUALLY what we’re saying when we say, “God will never give you more than you can handle.”

You are in a situation… you don’t THINK you can handle it… but you just don’t know how strong you are! You need to think more HIGHLY of your self… have some FAITH in yourself! You need to look inside yourself and find that inner ROAR.

But then we actually get into a situation that is bigger than us…

When we actually get into a battle with sin that we can’t seem to master...

Or we are confronted with a step of faith that we need to take...

Or we are faced with a trial we need to endure...

We are like, “What is God thinking?!?!! How could he POSSIBLY expect me to handle this!!!”

We apply the same line of thinking when we look at other people and how THEY seem to overcome sin with ease or take next steps of discipleship with no problem...

We remember a guy like Bruce and we think, “Oh he must have been REALLY special! I could NEVER have the type of relationship with the Lord that he had!

I could only DREAM of being as encouraging and effective as he was.

But Bruce would tell you: it wasn’t him… it’s Jesus.

The legacy of Bruce’s life was so clearly NOT, “How great is Bruce...” but rather “How great is Bruce’s God!”

And right now, Bruce is worshipping Jesus, Jesus isn’t worshipping him.

And in the end, the thing that we all loved about Bruce was that he would not have it any other way.

We do the same thing when we read certain Bible stories… we think, “OH… God must have thought REALLY HIGHLY of David or Samson or Gideon or Moses to pick them to fight some of these BIG battles…

They really end up doing some great things for God… God must really think they are special… we should make them our heroes and model their great moral character!”

And we create this false understanding of their lives against which we measure ourselves...

And we feel like we can’t measure up...

I’m not as strong or as spiritual as they were!

There are just some things I’ll NEVER be able to overcome.

But when we really dig into God’s word, we learn how far that is from the truth.

These guys were mere men and women who lacked a lot.

They were not WORTHY in themselves… but they did serve a WORTHY God.

What made them anything was that the mercy of God was shown to them, and the powerful grace of God was upon them.

God doesn’t want us to make Bible characters into personal heroes… the Bible has ONE hero and that is God himself.

And it continually DISPROVES the idea that “God will never give you more than you can handle”…

and instead replaces it with the truth that “God will OFTEN give you more than YOU can handle so that you will learn to trust HIM.”

That’s like the whole point of the consequences in the book of Judges… they are not given so Israel can learn “handle” them… they are given so they will cry out.

I don’t know if there is a better place in the book of Judges or the whole Bible that we learn this than in the life of Gideon.

Gideon has been made out to be a great HERO to model ourselves after...

Do you need to make a decision, throw out a fleece… do you need to lead a skilled set of leaders... determine their sense of urgency with some test...

But the point of Gideon’s story in the Bible is not so that we would look to Gideon… but that we would learn to look to God.

That’s what Gideon had to learn over and over again in his OWN life… don’t look to Gideon, look to God.

And from his life, we can learn that in order to see victory in our lives, we must trust God, not ourselves.

That’s the title of today’s sermon and the Big Idea:

Big Idea: Trust God, not yourself, as he mercifully rescues you from the cycles of sin.

We are continuing through our sermon series in Judges… now into Judges 6-7...

[Show RRR Cycle Diagram]

We are continuing to see the nation of Israel spiral down into cycles of sin.

They continually give themselves over to idols… they REBEL against God.

God gives them consequences… he raises up one of the surrounding nations to oppress them… to give them PART of what their sin deserves...

But then they cry out to the Lord… sometimes in regret… sometimes that generation is genuinely repentant.

And so the Lord shows MERCY… he raises up a deliverer to RESCUE them… and the result is a time of peace or rest… which also serves as a time of testing: will they give themselves over to idolatry again? Or will they follow through on the Lord’s command to rid the nation of Idolatry and Idolatrous people.

Let’s see if we can see that cycle here again in chapter 6...

Read 6:1-24

We are learning to trust God, not ourselves as he mercifully rescues us from the cycles of sin.

The Midianites and the Amalekites are oppressing Israel… they are forcing them into hiding… they are plundering their land year after year for 7 years...

And we get to meet the Lord’s deliverer.

Not much of one really… he’s hiding just like the rest of the nation.

He doesn’t even really seem to have a lot of trust in what God is doing.

Gideon’s assessment, I believe, is really the representative assessment of the nation at that time.

Israel is having a hard time SEEING God from their sinful perspective.

Here’s the first thing we learn:

1) Don't trust what you can see: trust the One who sees you. (6:1-24)

Explain: Israel was so blinded by their sin that they couldn’t understand the consequences rightly.

It’s so interesting how we interpret our situations based upon what we can see through our own sin-tainted, self-focused perspective, isn’t it?

In this section, we get God’s perspective on their situation… and Israel’s perspective on their situation as expressed by Gideon.

And I think we interpret our battles with sin and it’s consequences in similar ways to the Israelites.

What WE see is often different than what the LORD sees...

[Build Chart What we See/What the Lord Sees]

What we see:

Our Awareness: The opposition is fierce - we should hide.

v. 2 - “Israel made for themselves the dens that are in the mountains and the caves and the strongholds.”

v. 11 - Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress to hide it from the winepress.

Let’s go where NO ONE can see us. Let’s try protecting ourselves for SEVEN YEARS before we ever cry out to the Lord.

Let’s try to keep doing this thing on our own.

That’s the conclusion that their level of awareness led them to.

Our Assessment: The Lord has forsaken us and we should fear the oppressor.

v. 12 - if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us?… but now the Lord has forsaken us."

Do you ever feel that way when you are facing a challenge or trial? The Lord must hate me. The Lord must not be with me and showing me favor. I’m ANGRY with God!

Our Ability: We are weak and humiliated

v. 6 - “Israel was brought very low.”

v. 15 - “Please Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.”

What the Lord Sees:

The Lord’s Awareness: The opposition is fierce: he sees you in your hiding and hears your cries.

v. 8 - “When the people cried out to the Lord… the Lord sent a prophet.”

v. 12 - “his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress to hide it from the Midianites. And the Angel of the Lord appeared to him...”

God goes to the place of fear and hiding and shame and he draws his people out and gives them his presence to fight the battle.

The Lord’s Assessment: (instead of “The Lord has forsaken US,” his perspective is) We have forsaken HIM and we must fear HIM instead.

v. 8-10 - “the LORD sent a prophet to the people of Israel. And he said to them, “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: I led you up from Egypt and brought you out of the house of slavery. And I delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians and from the hand of all who oppressed you, and drove them out before you and gave you their land. And I said to you, ‘I am the LORD your God; you shall not fear the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell.’ But you have not obeyed my voice.”” (Judges 6:8–10, ESV)

It’s so amazing: we live in a fallen world and participate in the fallenness of that world with our own sin… and yet we have the audacity to look at God and say, “YOU are the problem!”

The Lord’s Ability: He is with the weak and gives grace to the humble.

v. 12 - The Lord is with you, O Mighty Man of Valor.”

v. 14 - ‘Go in this might of yours… do I not send you?”

God is not giving Gideon a commission and then saying, “Figure it out. Come back when and tell me when the job is done.”

God is giving Gideon a commission to participate in what GOD is already doing.

GOD is the Deliverer of Israel… NOT Gideon.

GOD is the one who understands rightly… NOT Gideon.

And that’s so important when it comes to breaking the cycles of sin in our lives… and taking our next steps in the way of a disciple...

God is the one who mercifully rescues us from our sin...

He’s the one who understands the way out… ours is but to TRUST HIM.

God is not saying, “Break free from your sin by trusting yourself!” (that would just be heaping more sin upon yourself because the essence of sin is trying to be God without God!).

Instead, God wants us to seek HIS merciful rescue so that we can SEE HIS glory.

So Gideon asks for a sign… let me bring you an offering… and God allows it… and consumes the offering… and NOW Gideon finally SEES!!! -

v. 22- "Alas, O Lord God! For now I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face!"

Once Gideon fully understands who he is talking to, he is rightly afraid.

The proper fear of the Lord has taken hold of his heart and is beginning to produce the wisdom that leads to his salvation.

It’s when we get our eyes off of our issues and off our man-made solutions and onto God that we can begin to trust his work.

The question is, “Do we SEE the one who sees us!”

Illustration: This week we were playing Hide and Seek as a family...

And it’s hard for a 6’3” guy to find a hiding place...

So I found a pretty lame hiding spot sitting in the boy’s room behind this small little dresser...

And Asher was the seeker… he came into the room and was looking in the closet.

Then he was looking behind the bed. By this point I could clearly see him.

Then he was looking RIGHT in my direction… but looking down at the floor...

And it took him a few seconds to look up… and he jumped because he had no idea I was so close.

And we laughed and laughed… because he KNEW… I could see him. But he couldn’t see me.

God may SEEM like he is hiding to us… but really he is in plain sight. And yet we must seek him if we are going to SEE him.

Jeremiah 29:13 - You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. (ESV)

Because our sin can blind us… and the consequences of living in a fallen world can cloud our vision... we need to SEEK the God who SEES.

It is when we seek God with eyes of faith… faith that looks beyond our circumstances… faith that fears God above all… that we truly SEE HIM....

And when we do, God shows us mercy.

Gideon has just spent 13 verses mouthing off to God when he didn’t even know who he was TALKING to… he is RIGHTLY afraid...

But God, in his mercy, says to Gideon in v. 24 - Peace be to you. Do not fear; you shall not die.

That’s mercy.

That is what God says to us through Jesus. He says, “I see you. I see your situation better than you see it yourself. And I will bring you peace. Now that you have learned to fear me, I will make peace with you. Now that you have come to see me through eyes of faith, you shall not die, even though that sight should kill you.”

I see your sin and what it deserves… and I will deliver you from it.

I see your groanings, and I will deliver you in them.

I see your weaknesses, and I will deliver you THROUGH them.

God sees… [one of his names in the Bible is “El Roi”… “the God who sees”]… God SEES and he shows mercy.

He sees you as you sit alone in your room fighting temptation to look at that image you KNOW you shouldn’t view.

He SEES you as you feel the impulse to snap at your kids when you have to correct them over the same thing for the 100th time that day.

He SEES you as you face pressures at work or school to fit in with a culture that does not honor God.

He SEES you as you feel the urge to be lazy and watch TV instead of doing the schoolwork that he has entrusted to you right now.

He SEES you as you desire to win the argument with your spouse instead of humbling yourself.

He SEES YOU…

The question is: do we see him? Do we SEE HIM through eyes of faith? Do we trust him enough to see him as the God who SEES?

Do we trust that he is AWARE of our circumstances and is in control?

Do we trust his ASSESSMENT of how we got there: that he is to be feared above all gods… that we have forsaken HIM and get what our sin deserves… but he STILL loves to show us mercy so that our hearts would be led to repentance.

Do we trust that he is ABLE to use the weak things to show his all surpassing power?

Don't trust what you can see: trust the one who sees you.

Now if we are going to trust him, it means that we are going to take some action steps according to that trust.

Read 6:25-32 [explain along the way]

Here’s the second way we must trust God, not ourselves:

2) Don't trust what you must sustain: trust the One who sustains you. (6:25-32)

Explain: Now we get the picture from verse 11 that Gideon is still living on the family farm where his parents live… that Terebinth tree and winepress where the angel of the Lord met him was on his dad’s property.

Now I don’t think it is too big of a jump to believe that Gideon had worshiped at the feet of this idol a time or two before.

Even if not, he made no efforts to remove it previously. So we have to ask, “Why not?”

I think it’s obvious that it is because this pair of idols is what his family trusted to sustain them.

They thought the rain for their crops and the fertility for their womb came from these two statues in their back yard.

And so God’s command to Gideon is a command of trust… God is basically asking these questions as he commands Gideon:

“Will you trust me to sustain you when all your idols are gone?”

“Will you trust me to sustain you when others oppose you for your allegiance with ME?”

God is instructing Gideon to put legs on the newfound trust that he has in the Lord… and take his next step of faith.

Breaking cycles of sin… tearing down idols and taking next steps… requires that we LIVE OUT our trust in God.

But too often we say, “I CAN’T DO IT! IT’S TOO HARD! WHAT IF IT COSTS TOO MUCH! I’VE NEVER BEEN ABLE TO DO IT BEFORE!!!”

Exactly. You can’t do it. Breaking cycles of sin… taking next steps… IS too hard for YOU. It does cost more than you can give.

Which is exactly why you need God to Sustain you!

TRUSTING GOD means that we are in a position where we CANNOT rely on ourselves… we MUST rely on God.

Now that doesn’t mean that we don’t feel fear… Gideon is clearly afraid of his family as he tears down the family idols and slaughters the family bull…

I loved what one commentator said about this part of the narrative… he said, “Some may blame Gideon for demolishing Baal’s altar by night, fearing relatives and city fathers. I doubt that it matters. Did God tell him to do it by day? Did God tell him he couldn’t be afraid? Or did God simply tell him to do it? Evidently, obedience was essential and heroism optional. (Davis, D. R. (2000). Judges: Such a Great Salvation (p. 98). Ross-shire, Great Britain: Christian Focus Publications.)

I love that: obedience necessary, heroism optional.

Don’t wait until you stop being afraid to taken your next step in following Jesus… TRUST GOD IN YOUR PLACE OF FEAR.

Trust God even when you don’t know how he is going to sustain you… because he will.

Watch how God powerfully sustains Gideon in this story: in the end, it’s his FAMILY… specifically his Dad who put up the idols in the first place... that defends him.

God SUSTAINS Gideon’s life by using the very person Gideon feared in the first place.

We serve an awesome God, don’t we!?!?! He can do what we cannot imagine. He can change hearts… he can work in such unexpected ways...

He preserves our lives in ways that we cannot imagine as we take steps of obedient faith.

He can do that because HE IS GOD!

It’s kind of the whole point of this part of the story: God is the powerful Creator and Sustainer of life… not Baal… NOT the Asheroth.

God’s battle is not merely to annihilate the Midianites… it’s to free the Israelites’ hearts from their bondage to idolatry.

The townspeople want to kill Gideon because he just destroyed the thing in which they put their trust.

They just lost the idol that they believed sustained their livelihood.

…which is why it is so ironic that they are defending this so-called “god.”

Here they are... trying to SAVE… sustain… the one who they believe sustains them!!!

Joash is so wise in his defense of his son’s actions: Will you contend for Baal? Will you SAVE him?

In other words, “Why are you defending a god? If he is really God, he can defend himself. He can sustain his own life. He can pull himself back together and take care of my son. He can put him to death by morning.”

But wait… oh yeah… he can’t!

Psalm 96 captures his same line of reasoning well:

“For great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised; he is to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the peoples are worthless idols, but the LORD made the heavens. Splendor and majesty are before him; strength and beauty are in his sanctuary.” (Psalm 96:4–6, ESV)

This was exactly what God said was the PROBLEM with Israel back in the first place when he sent them the prophet:

Back in verse 10 - “I am the LORD your God; you shall not FEAR the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell.” (Judges 6:10, ESV)

The LORD is to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the peoples are WORTHLESS idols!

And we see here through their response to Gideon tearing down the town idol that they hadn’t obeyed the voice of the prophet either.

They still did not fear God above all else.

The nation had REGRET… they cried out to the Lord… alongside their other gods… but they did not have repentance.

Instead they kept on worshiping worthless idols. And they FEARED when they were torn down.

They FEARED idols that could not defend themselves.

They FEARED idols that could not sustain themselves because they were lifeless pieces of wood and stone.

And we can do the same things sometimes… we can put our trust in things that WE must sustain.

We derive our sense of value and security from things that NEED us rather than from the One we were created to need.

A few weeks back, we defined idolatry from the New City Catechism as “Trusting in created things rather than the Creator for our hope and happiness, significance and security.

And when we devote ourselves to an idol, we are saying that this thing or this person CREATES or SUSTAINS my hope and happiness...

This thing SUSTAINS my sense of significance and/or security.

And we talked about four types of idols that we can worship: Material Idols, People Idols, Self Idols, and Imaginary God Idols...

And all of those things require someone else to sustain them...

They NEED someone else to assign them value or significance.

They NEED someone else to give them life or to maintain their appearance and glory.

They NEED someone else to defend their honor.

But the LORD is self-sustaining. He is what we call “self-existent.”

He is all-glorious in himself… he doesn’t NEED us to make him god or to assign him value.

Now, he WANTS to use us in his plan as an act of his MERCY… but he doesn’t NEED us.

That’s WHY he loves to use weak vessels who don’t trust themselves: so that HE receives the honor!

And Gideon has come to understand the folly of trusting himself… now his dad, Joash has come to understand the folly of trusting a statue that must be sustained by human activity… we are going to see that the whole Abiezrite family clan of will come to see this through Gideon’s actions..

The question is, will you?

Will you see the folly in finding hope and happiness in a material thing that needs YOU to maintain it and then have the courage to turn away from it?

Will you see the folly in finding significance and security in people who are FINITE and WEAK just like yourself and trust God enough to re-order those relationships?

Will you see the folly in looking INWARD for everything that you need… knowing that you’ve never found what you need there before… and then trust God that JESUS is your identity and joy and hope???

Will you see the folly in creating a god of your own imagination… and then worshiping that version of God… and instead trust that God is who he has revealed himself in the the person of Jesus Christ… and worship him rightly?

We can’t make headway against the cycles of sin in our lives… unless we see the folly of our idolatry… unless we see that OUR IDOLS cannot sustain us… only Jesus can.

We can’t take steps of following Jesus… unless we see that he doesn’t need US… we need HIM.

Don’t trust what you must sustain: trust the One who sustains you.

The Lord sustains Gideon… he turns his father’s heart… and we learn next that he turns the whole Abiezrite family to Gideon’s side:

Read and briefly explain 6:36-7:25

As Gideon learns to trust God, not himself, he learns this lesson that we all need:

3) Don't trust what you can understand: trust the One who understands you. (6:33-7:25)

I find this fascinating: By verse 36, God has already spoken directly to Gideon in visible form… he has turned the hearts of Gideon’s family to him… he has empowered Gideon with his Holy Spirit… but STILL Gideon is unsure.

And so we get this popular story of Gideon’s fleece...

It’s always the one Christian’s go to when they want to make a decision...

OH, I guess I’m supposed to throw out a FLEECE to see if God wants me to… take this job… buy this house… go on that mission trip...

And so they come up with some TEST for God… if the person texts me while I’m praying, THEN I’ll know...

Or if the numbers on the clock lead me to a passage of scripture that confirms what I want, then I’ll know it was God.

But Gideon’s fleece is not in the Bible as an example to know how to find God’s will… Gideon already KNEW God’s will.

God told him he wanted to use Gideon to defeat the Midianites.

The fleece shows Gideon’s faithlessness. It shows his fear. His doubts.

It’s the equivalent of saying, “I know the Bible says I’m supposed to stop having this adulterous relationship… but I’m going to take some time praying about it first.”

NO! Don’t pray… just OBEY!!!

Or “I know God wants me to talk to my family member about their relationship with Jesus, but I’m going to wait until things align just right before I take that step of faith.

NO! Don’t wait until YOU think everything is perfect according to YOUR own understanding… just HAVE THE CONVERSATION!

Gideon’s fleece is not an example for us to obey… but it IS there to help us know the Lord’s character… it shows God’s MERCY and PATIENCE and UNDERSTANDING with our lack of faith and doubts!

God is so longsuffering with Gideon.

Gideon wants all these confirmations… and instead of saying, “You know what Gideon… I’m not some PARLOR MAGICIAN!!! I’m GOD!!!”

Instead of saying that, God’s like, “OK. I’ll do it. I don’t have to, but I know you are kind of weak and fearful. I’ll condescend to you in order to give you the faith you need to enter the battle.”

That’s part of the way God shows us his mercy in rescuing us. He condescends to us.

So Gideon is convinced… and gets his army together… 32,000 altogether. That’s a little over three times bigger than Barak’s army from last week. Doesn’t sound too bad, except that chapter 8 tells us that the army of Midian was about 135,000.

That’s about 4:1 against Israel.

But God doesn’t give you more than you can handle, does he?

I love what the Lord says in 7:2 - “The LORD said to Gideon, “The people with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand, lest Israel boast over me, saying, ‘My own hand has saved me.’” (Judges 7:2, ESV)

That type of logic doesn’t compute with us.

Our logic is, that’s not enough!

God’s logic is, “That’s still too much because you will think you were awesome.”

So God gives this “out”… if anyone is afraid, they can go home. That was actually a provision God made in Deuteronomy… if anyone is afraid to go into battle, then they don’t have to go.

No surprise when the other army is 4:1 bigger than you… 20,000 go home.

Now the numbers are more like 13:1… still not ood enough for God.

So God gives them an arbitrary test...

Sometimes people will try to explain this by saying, “Those who lap with their tongue like a dog are down on all fours and not in a good fighting position. And those who lap with their hands are just knelt down and therefore ready for battle.

It could be… but I think that defeats the point of the story though… God wants this army to be WEAKER, not stronger.

He doesn’t want ANY HINT that Israel could do this on their own.

So we get down to 300 soldiers. That’s 450:1. And God says, “That looks about right.”

Does God ever give us more than we can handle? Does he ever do things that we just can’t understand?

But God is showing that he understands us. He understands our desire to get the credit in our fight against sin. He understands our pride.

But as he humbles us, he also understands our fear of vulnerability.

The Lord says, “You can fight now and I will deliver them into your hands. OR if your scared, you can go spy on their camp tonight.”

Well, OF COURSE Gideon is scared!!! You would be scared too! Gideon has been nothing BUT scared since this whole thing started!

He cannot wrap his mind around what God is doing.

But in his fear, God gives him what he needs…

He takes God’s allowance and goes down to spy on the Midianite camp.

And it just so happens that this Midianite soldier had a dream about a loaf of bread killing them all...

And that dream just so happens to be interpreted by another Midianite soldier as Gideon.

And Gideon NOW has enough confidence and understanding to go into battle.

The Lord was so MERCIFUL and UNDERSTANDING to allow Gideon to gain just enough insight so that he could take the next step forward.

Because that next step forward is going to be a doozy.

Not only does he only have 300 men… but the Lord’s battle plan is a bit… unconventional.

Go to battle with torches, trumpets and empty jars. That’s it.

And so they surround the camp, and blow the trumpets and break the jars…

And the Midianites are thrown into confusion and start killing EACH OTHER.

The Lord defeats their army from within!

God wins the battle through basically no work of their own: simply an act of faith.

And so Gideon re-assembles the troops. And they begin to finish the battle.

We will finish the rest of the story of Gideon next week, but for now let’s just dwell on this fact: we serve a God who understands us.

He is patient when it takes us time to wrap our heads around the fact that we CAN’T understand him.

He is longsuffering when our faith is slow.

He is generous to reveal exactly what we need to know in the moment that we need it.

And we can trust him. We MUST trust him… as we take steps of obedience and break cycles of sin.

It’s when we THINK we can stand against the enemy that we fall.

It’s when we trust OURSELVES and our OWN UNDERSTANDING that we lose the battles against sin and temptation.

It’s when we think we are strong enough to “try harder next time” that the next time we will fall.

The way of escape in our battle against sin is not always what seems obvious to us: doing better, trying harder, getting more resources...

It’s actually going deeper and deeper into our trust that Jesus Christ is our only source of salvation.

It’s going deeper and deeper into our faith in the one who was tempted in every way as we are, yet was without sin.

As you seek to break the cycles of rebellious sin in your life, God wants you to see that you aren’t the hero of your story.

God is.

Gideon wasn’t the hero. God was.

He gave Gideon and that army FAR more than he could handle so that he would trust the all-surpassing power of God.

Is there something God is calling you to do or believe… and you just don’t understand how that is going to look? Is God leading you to something that seems impossible for you, but it is still in clear obedience to his word? What’s the sin pattern that you just can’t understand how it is going to change?

Don’t try to convince yourself that you can do it. You can’t. That’s the point.

Instead, trust that God CAN.

Trust that he knows how he is using this thing in your life to produce faith and endurance and steadfastness.

Trust that he is using this thing to MERCIFULLY RESCUE you from that which could destroy you.

And trust that in his mercy, he will give you exactly what you need to know… when you need to know it. And you can take BOLD steps of faith to follow him.

Trust God, not yourself, as he mercifully rescues you from cycles of sin.