Trust

Our fathers trusted in You;

they trusted, and You delivered them.

They cried to You, and were delivered;

they trusted in You, and were not ashamed.

Psalm 22:4-5, NKJV

For the first time in His eternal existence, He felt a separation from God that He had never known. With the sin of the world--all the sins of all the people in all the world from all time--upon Him, He felt forsaken, abandoned, alone.

In desperation He cried out with a loud voice, WHY? Why have You left me? Why won't you help me? Why don't you hear me?

He was treated as a worm among men, something to be stepped on and despised.

He was mocked by those who saw Him, an object of ridicule and scorn. They shook their heads and wagged their tongues at him, hissing through sneers that the God in whom He had always trusted was now nowhere to be found to help Him.

His enemies surrounded him like charging and angry bulls, roaring like raging lions.

He was naked, shamefully exposed, and forced to watch while foreigners gambled for his clothes.

His life was spilling from His body one drop of blood and sweat and tears at a time. Dogs licked the blood that ran in rivulets down the wood of the execution stake.

His arms and legs were twisted in hideous contortions, straining against the nails that fixed him to the cruel splintered cross, and where the horrifying beating had ripped his flesh to ribbons, He could see exposed his own bones.

His heart seemed to be melting within Him, fainting from heat and thirst and pain.

His strength was gone. Utterly exhausted, He thirsted for a touch of water upon his swollen tongue.

He stared Death directly in the face, and knew that His time for the grave was at hand.

And hanging on Calvary's tree, Jesus the Christ, Son of the Living God, trusted in His Father. The night before He had prayed, pleaded, petitioned, "Please, let this cup pass from me. Let someone else do it. Don't let them do this to me." Anguished to the point of sweating blood, Jesus cried out from the depths of His soul to be delivered from the trial that faced him. But at the end of His tormented groanings, He surrendered to the sovereign will of God with, "Not my will, but thine be done."

Even now, in the heat of the day, those all around began to call out to Him: "If You are who You say You are, save yourself! Come down off that cross!" And perhaps He was tempted, in the frailty of His fleshly existence, to call ten thousand angels to slaughter those who mocked Him, to vanquish those who had condemned Him, to avenge Himself upon those who had denied and betrayed Him. But having renewed Himself in prayer the night before, having committed Himself to seeing the will of the Father accomplished, He surrendered to the sovereign will of God.

And He trusted.

It's easy to trust God when things are good and going your way, when you are the head and not the tail, above only and not beneath, when everybody likes you and nobody hates you, when your living on the mountain underneath a cloudless sky. It's easy to trust God when angels and demons do your bidding, when you speak in faith and see miracles take place. It's easy to trust God when you're living in victory and triumph and prosperity and health, when all your enemies have been subdued at your feet. It's easy to trust God then.

But try trusting Him when your entire world comes crashing down on your head, when those who hate you have their way at your expense, when your prayers seemingly go unheard and no answer will come, when the blessings of God that make rich and add no sorrow with them seem small and long ago.

Try trusting Him when you've taken everything that you are, everything that you want, everything that you could ever do or hope, and nailed it to a cross. You may very well die on that cross, but will you trust the sovereign will of God. Will you hear His voice and obey His commands, even if it means that darkness must descend on your pitiful existence?

Jesus did. And Jesus died. But three days later, His hope did not disappoint. His trust did not put Him to shame. Because from the finality of His death rose new and eternal life, for Him, for all, for you and me!

Trust in the Lord.