Let me never be put to confusion.

In Psalm 71 David begins by saying:  "In you, O Lord, do I put my trust; let me never be put to confusion."  Eugene Peterson in his translation The Message puts that verse this way:  "I run to God for dear life, I'll never live to regret it."

The question that is raised in my heart is "do I really trust God?"

I live in a land of plenty for the moment.  The illusions of permanence and security surround me.  The temptation is to put my trust in my house, my job, my bank account, my health insurance, my retirement benefits, etc.

We all know, sort of, that all these things can be gone in a moment.  All one has to do for proof is to look at the stock market crash following 9-11 and the housing bust in 2008.  Retirement accounts were wiped out and homes were lost seemingly overnight.  People who had worked for years at the same job were suddenly unemployed.

There is only one place where we can go for security and "never live to regret it."  Actually it isn't a place, it's a person.

I know I may be preaching to the choir as they say but it is all too easy for even those of us who claim a relationship with God to actually put our trust someplace else.

I believe this misplaced trust is the reason for the confusion in the church today and why the church doesn't have much power with God or man.  We don't really trust God and we don't really live "By Faith."  We live more by a "hope so" kind of faith which really isn't faith at all.

Many of us have become wary of God's dependability because of experiences in life that have caused us to doubt while others have become so comfortable with the security this world seems to provide, God is more of a convenience than a necessity.

David went on in that psalm cry out:   Be my strong refuge, To which I may resort continually; You have given the commandment to save me, For You are my rock and my fortress.
(Psa 71:3 NKJV)

The day is swiftly coming when we in the West will know what our brothers and sisters in other parts of the world know.  There is only one place we can safely and securely put our trust and know that we will never live to regret it:  Our God.  May we begin practicing that truth before we have to learn it the hard way.