“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in Him. He will be like a tree planted by the water… It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green.”
(Jeremiah 17:7–8)
Dearest Daughters,
The cynic never tastes the fruit of God’s goodness, but withers in the wilderness of unbelief.
When Israel was starving during a great famine, and their king decided to kill Elisha for not intervening, the prophet gave him a surprising prophecy: “By this time tomorrow,” he said, “food will be flowing freely through the gates of the city.” But the officer on whom the king leaned scoffed: “Even if the windows of heaven were opened, could this thing really be?”
Elisha replied, “You will see it with your eyes, but you will not eat of it.”
And that’s exactly what happened. The next day, the miracle happened, and the long siege was finally broken. Food poured into the city in abundance, ending the deadly famine. But the man who had scoffed, was trampled in the gate by the crowd and died. He saw what God could do . . . but he did not partake of the blessing.
His cynicism cost him everything.
The Scripture says, “Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who draws strength from mere flesh and whose heart turns away from the LORD. That person will be like a bush in the wastelands; they will not see prosperity when it comes. They will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt land where no one lives. But blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in Him. He will be like a tree planted by the water. . . . It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green” (Jer. 17:5–8).
Trust is the soil in which life and love grow. When we draw strength only from our own flesh, we begin to wither inside. Suspicion and cynicism drain the life from our relationships, and self-reliance hardens the heart until we can’t feel the rains of God’s grace. But the one who trusts with anticipation and hope, who believes in God’s ultimate goodness, becomes like the tree by the water: steadfast, fruitful, and unafraid when the heat of testing comes. Their roots sink deep into the soil of God’s faithfulness.
Trust is a core element in a godly marriage. And yes—it takes risk to trust. We risk ourselves again and again if we are truly going to ever really live. It was a risk to fall in love in the first place! It’s a risk to marry, to have a child, start a new job. It’s a risk just to open our hearts. Something could always go wrong, but life without risk isn’t life at all!
What matters is not avoiding risk, but choosing the right people to take the risk with. Because when one falls, the other can lift him up. So you must have trust, and I don’t mean trust in the fallibility of human flesh, but your trust must be in the design God created for relationships. He gave patterns for marriage, family, church and community.
It is not the perfection of people that gives us confidence, but the perfect wisdom of God’s structure. We trust that He designed a net to catch us when we fall, if we will stay in the building that He is creating out human lives. And as much as the individuals within that design submit to it, and to Christ, we can trust them, too, fallible as they are. We can trust that they are being changed from day to day, from faith to faith, from glory to glory, just as we are. And in the end we will all be shaped to fit as stones built into His house.
The world does everything it can to destroy this trust. It feeds us cynicism, suspicion and irony. As an adult encountering so much of the world’s literature, entertainment, and media, I’ve often marveled at how steeped it all is in mistrust. It all constantly follows the same storyline: the protective father is revealed as the abuser. The noble pastor turns out to be a hypocrite. The sanctuary of church ends up as a cover for crime. The nurturing mother is really just a cold machine. Becoming a traditional wife is a gateway to dangerous alt right cults, and on and on.
Why is this? Because Satan is the accuser of the brethren and wants to prove that love can’t be trusted, that human failure will triumph over the power of God. And the world plays along, not just telling true stories of failure, but reinforcing the lie that this is always how it goes. That no one is trustworthy and that no one ever truly changes.
But I have seen that love can really win!
I once met a woman visiting our church. She spoke of the struggles in her marriage, her husband’s weaknesses, and then said, with a shrug, “But we’ll stick with it. All men have skeletons in their closets.”
I found her words deeply saddening, because I knew it wasn’t true. My husband didn’t have a skeleton in his closet. Neither did my father. Many men I love and admire do not, and even among those who once did (including women, by the way), I have seen the old man put to death and a new man rise up, transformed by the blood of Christ. The past is buried, and a new life born.
But cynicism is like a veil over our eyes, keeping us from seeing the truth of what God is doing—or what He can do. That woman’s marriage could never flourish while she lived under the lie that trust was impossible. She had no vision for transformation and no faith in redemption. Her cynicism had shut up the windows of heaven.
The Lord said through Malachi, “Test Me in this, and see if I will not open the windows of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it” (Mal. 3:10).
Unbelief, like the king’s servant had, always stands outside the gate, missing out on the blessing that could have been. So I urge you: keep the windows of heavens mercy and fruitfulness open.
If your husband loves God and is committed to His ways, then believe in God’s work in him. Honor and trust not only the man he is today, but the man you believe God is shaping him to be. See with the eyes of faith!
I had to learn this while raising teenage sons as well. I remember thinking during hard seasons, How do I speak respectfully to him when he’s acting like this? How do I show honor when he’s acting like a belligerent toddler? And the Lord showed me: respect the man you believe he is becoming. Speak to that future, bringing it forth with your faith. Treat him as if it’s already becoming real, because in God, it is!
We must do this with our children, our spouses and anyone we love. See what God is doing. Believe in it, and honor it even before it’s visible. That kind of trust opens the door wide for transformation.
But cynicism, just like the officer whom the king leaned on, stands at the gate and scoffs. And in the end, it may see the miracle . . . but will not taste it. “Take care, brothers,” the scripture warns, “lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God” (Heb. 3:12).
The cynic will always lie trampled in the gates of victory. But I believe for miracles for you! I want you to taste and to feast on the goodness of God in your marriage, in your children, in your church, and in your life. Shut the door to suspicion, and open the door to trust.
Believe in God and in His design. Believe that the love He plants can grow, even in the parched soil of our human weakness if we keep on watering it with trust.
With all my love,
Mom