By Rick Warren
“For the word of the Lordholds true, and we can trust everything he does” (Psalm 33:4 NLT, second edition).
One of the great questions of life is, “Who are you going to trust?” The way you answer that question will determine whether you’re happy or miserable, whether you succeed or fail, whether you make something of your life or you waste your life.
Who always has your best interest in mind? Who will help you make decisions important to your life? Should you trust popular opinion? That may not be a good idea since it constantly changes. Should you trust celebrities who set the latest trends? Trends change, and fads fade. Should you make critical life decisions based on what you read on social media? Just because it’s online doesn’t mean it’s truly trustworthy or reliable.
What about trusting yourself? The truth is, our emotions can lie to us. The Bible says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9 KJV). When we live by our emotions, we can be easily manipulated by other people and by our changing moods.
If you’re going to entrust your life and your future to someone or something, you’d better choose someone who has your best interest at heart, knows everything, is perfect, and will never lie to you. That kind of limits your options — to God.
No one is ever going to always tell you the truth. They’re going to shade it. They’re going to filter it. They’re going to make it sound nice. They won’t tell you what you need to hear. But what you need to hear is the truth, because it is the truth that sets you free. Lies about yourself, others, the world, and how life really is only keep you in bondage.
To be set free, you must have the truth. As I’ve said many times, the truth will set you free, but first it makes you miserable. We don’t like the truth. We don’t want to hear that most of the problems in our lives were brought on by poor decisions. We don’t want to hear that it’s our own stubbornness and ego and insecurity that cause the stress in our lives, but it’s true.
Psalm 33:4 says, “For the word of the Lordholds true, and we can trust everything he does” (NLT, second edition).
God said it, and that settles it — whether or not you believe it. God isn’t waiting on your opinion to figure out what’s right and what’s wrong. If God says it, it’s true.
You can trust God.