Jerry Bridges - 31 Days Toward Trusting God

The problem with pain is that it can obscure our vision of God, causing us to forget the truths that would sustain our trust through trials. What sufferers need most is to be reminded of the truths we already know in clear, simple, and brief increments. Thats why Im so happy to have 31 Days Toward Trusting God by one of my favorite authors, Jerry Bridges. Here are a month of meditations for sufferers on the sovereignty, love, and wisdom of God. If you are suffering, know someone who is, or wisely want to prepare for the inevitable suffering that awaits, may this book anchor your confidence in Gods goodness and sustaining grace.

C. J. M AHANEY , senior pastor, Sovereign Grace Church, Louisville, Kentucky

Spending a month of quiet times with Jerry Bridges, one of our favorite teachers, has been a real joy. Day by day, he has encouraged and inspired us with clarity and sincerity to trust in Gods wisdom, sovereignty, and love. What a privilege it is to learn from this humble man of God who fervently embraces and relies on the Scriptures. His newest book is now at the top of our Favorite Gifts to Give list.

A NNE R OBINSON AND J OYCE W ATSON , cofounders and codirectors, Mountaintop Conference, Wheeling, West Virginia

31 Days toward Trusting God

Copyright 2013 by Jerry Bridges. All rights reserved.

A NavPress resource published in alliance with Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.

NAVPRESS and the NAVPRESS logo are registered trademarks of NavPress, The Navigators, Colorado Springs, CO. TYNDALE is a registered trademark of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. Absence of in connection with marks of NavPress or other parties does not indicate an absence of registration of those marks.

Cover photograph of bird copyright Rachel Bellinsky/Stocksy.com All rights reserved.

Cover illustration of triangle pattern by Curly_Pat/Creative Market. All rights reserved.

Cover watercolor texture by Julie Chen. Copyright Tyndale House Publishers. All rights reserved.

Adapted from Trusting God 1988, 2008 by Jerry Bridges

Italics in Scripture quotations are the authors emphasis.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version (ESV), copyright 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Some of the anecdotal illustrations in this book are true to life and are included with the permission of the persons involved. All other illustrations are composites of real situations, and any resemblance to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Tyndale House Publishers at , or call 1-800-323-9400.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bridges, Jerry.

31 days toward trusting God : a daily devotional / Jerry Bridges.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-1-61291-497-8

1. Providence and government of GodChristianity. 2. Trust in God. 3. Devotional literature. I. Title. II. Title: Thirty-one days toward trusting God.

BT96.3.B75 2013

242.2dc23

2013016537

Build: 2017-02-21 14:10:03

PREFACE

This daily devotional is based on my book Trusting God Even When Life Hurts, which was published in the summer of 1988. My wife, Eleanor, died a few months later in November of that year. I actually submitted the finished manuscript to NavPress in December 1987, the same month we learned that Eleanors cancer had returned in a more virulent form.

So I had eleven months, as I watched Eleanor slowly die, to live out the biblical truths of trusting God that I had just written about. It has now been twenty-five years since Trusting God Even When Life Hurts was published. Eleanors death was only the first of many difficult and sometimes painful experiences I have encountered in those years, and I can testify that the biblical truths I wrote about in 1987 are indeed true. We can trust God even when life hurts.

It is my prayer that these thirty-one daily devotions will serve to remind previous readers of the book about those important truths and that they will introduce new readers to the truth that they can trust God in times of difficulty and pain.

CAN I TRUST GOD?

Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God.

H EBREWS 3:12

For most of us, life is filled with frustrations, anxieties, and disappointments that tempt us to fret, fume, and worry. One author has aptly captured the flavor of this in a devotional book for high schoolers titled If God Loves Me, Why Cant I Get My Locker Open? We may smile a little at that, but the fact is, this is the plane of adversity on which many of us live each day. And its in the crucible of even this minor level of adversity that were tempted to wonder, Can I trust God?

Even when life seems to be going our way and our daily path seems pleasant and smooth, we dont know what the future holds, just as Solomon has said: You do not know what a day may bring (Proverbs 27:1). Someone has described life as like having a thick curtain hung across ones path, receding before us as we advance, but only step-by-step. None of us can tell whats beyond that curtain; none of us can tell what events a single day or hour might bring into our lives. Sometimes the retreating curtain reveals events much as we had expected; often it reveals things unexpected and undesired, filling us with anxiety, frustration, heartache, and grief.

Gods people are not immune from such pain. In fact, it often seems as if theirs is more severe, more frequent, more unexplainable, and more deeply felt than the pain of the unbeliever. The problem of pain is as old as history and just as universal. Even creation itself, Paul tells us, has been subjected to frustration and groans as in the pains of childbirth (see Romans 8:20-22).

So the question naturally arises, Where is God in all of this? Can you really trust God when adversity strikes and fills your life with pain? Does He indeed come to the rescue of those who seek Him? Does He truly deliver those who call upon Him in the day of trouble, as Psalm 50:15 promises? Does the Lords unfailing love in fact surround the person who trusts in Him, as Psalm 32:10 affirms?

I sympathize with those who find it particularly difficult to trust God in times of adversity. Ive been there myself often enough to know something of the distress, despair, and darkness that fill our souls when we wonder if God truly cares about our plight. Ive spent a good portion of my adult life encouraging people to pursue holiness, to obey God, yet I acknowledge it often seems more difficult to trust God than to obey Him.

Gods moral will as seen in the Bible is rational and reasonable, but the circumstances in which we must trust God often appear irrational and inexplicable. Gods law is readily recognized as being good for us, but the circumstances of our lives frequently appear harmful and grim, perhaps even calamitous and tragic. Obeying God is worked out within well-defined boundaries of Gods revealed will, while trusting God must be worked out in an arena with no boundaries, where were always coping with the unknown.