Trust in the Lord, and Do Good

This is part one of an excerpt from Louie Giglio’s book The Comeback.

When we start to head toward a comeback, we think we need to have our destination figured out. We’re not sure how it’s all going to play out, and we can’t figure it out. So we’re overwhelmed.

Much stress is lifted from us when we come back to the starting place—the basic foundation of truth—trusting in God and doing good. People are going to scrutinize us by asking, “What are you going to do?” “Have you figured it all out yet?” The place to start is to answer, “I’ve decided to trust in the Lord and do good. I’m not 100 percent sure where all this is going to go, but I’ll tell you that I’m actively trusting in the Lord.”

Trusting is never passive. When we trust, we don’t just sit back and chill. In the waiting mode, in the journey of heading toward a comeback, the invitation of God is to keep doing the very best at whatever God has put in front of us. This means we adopt the attitude of relying on a great and sovereign God to orchestrate the plans and purposes and direction of our lives.

When our view of God expands so we can see him as he truly is—as a big and extraordinary God—we have less need for specifics. We’ve seen God act before. We trust him for how he’s going to act in the future. We’re not stressing out over what he can and can’t do. We know we’re loved by him and called by him and chosen by him and created by him. And if all those things are true, then God is going to lead us into his best purposes and plans.

I love the story of the patriarch Abram. (That was his name before it was changed to Abraham.) He was faithful to God even before the cross, and his faithfulness was counted to him as righteousness.

Abram lived with his family in a place called Haran. In Genesis 12, God said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you” (v. 1).

That was God’s revealed plan for Abram. Period. Only that much. Just pack up and roll on out, and as you’re going, I’ll show you where we’re going to go. The leading wasn’t to the land I have shown you. It was go to the land I will show you. This is often the way God leads his people even today. Step out of the boat, and walk toward me on the water. I’ll show you what’s going to happen along the way.

Abram’s call came with a promise too. God said, “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (vv. 2–3).

What if God came to you today and said the same thing? “You’re going to be a huge blessing. I’m going to make you into a great nation. And everybody’s going to be blessed through you.” What would you think?

The honest answer I think a lot of people would give is, “I dunno. That’s not what I envisioned for my life. Is the way going to be hard? What’s it going to cost me? Are my friends going to come too?” And that’s okay, because that was Abram’s specific call, not yours or mine.

But let’s get our minds around the bigger theme of that call to Abram. God was saying, “Here’s a big promise. I’m going to impact a lot of people in a good way through you.” That’s a promise most of us would take. And notice that Abram’s promise only came on the back side of God’s calling to him. The call was to first leave what was comfortable. It was to step forward in faith into the unknown with God. Only then would the blessing come.

The Bible specifically notes that Abram was seventy-five years old when this all went down (v. 4). Seventy-five! Abram was no young man, and this blows up two myths: first, that a person needs to have life figured out when he or she is twenty, and second, that God doesn’t give great callings to people when they’re older and established in life.

God never wants anybody to check out, no matter how old or young. God is looking for people to take steps based not on age but on how we’re gazing at his greatness. Up to the moment when we die at the end of our lives, everything else is fair game. God wants us to keep an open hand, to continually say to God, “I trust you to lead me.” We need to get on the track that says, “I only live once. I’m never going to retire from God’s plans for me.” Our lives are always safest, not when we have a good paying job or a big retirement account or when we live in the suburbs with a white picket fence, but when our lives are firmly placed in the hands of God.

If you want to keep reading from The Comeback, click here to grab a copy of this special resource.