Trust Buckets

I occasionally talk to my daughters about something I like to call their “trust bucket”, especially the oldest one.  The trust bucket is an imaginary container that holds the amount of trust I have in them.  Knowing them the way that I do, each one has started out with a full trust bucket.  The more full their trust bucket, the more they are trusted to have privileges of responsible, older people.  Should their trust bucket ever run low, then they won’t have as many privileges.  Neither of them have ever done anything to this point to lose any trust from their bucket.  They are good girls.  Daddy is trusting.

I’ve found that I tend to keep trust buckets for most people I know, on some internal shelf in my mind.  My mind can quickly take inventory of a person’s trust bucket each time I interact with them.  If their bucket is full, it’s easy to see and I don’t dwell on it… but if their trust bucket is not full enough where I can’t see any “trust”, then man do I examine why!  “ I sure do love that person, but I have to limit how I show it because they really blew it in the past with me, ” I’ll say in my head.  Rarely do I give them the benefit of the doubt if their trust bucket is running low.  Right or wrong, that’s the silliness that goes on in my thoughts.  But that’s with people… do I do that with God?

I have the honor and pleasure of leading a Bible study where I work.  We’ve been getting together over lunch every other Thursday for what we affectionately refer to as “Thursday School”.  (Instead of Sunday school… get it?)  It’s good to commune with fellow brothers and sisters in Christ at work, share the Word with one another, and lift each other up in prayer.  That time is very fulfilling for me personally, and I hope it is for everyone else who attends.

Over the summer months, attendance at Thursday school began to dwindle from around 12 people to sometimes less than 5.  Now you and I both know that people are busy sometimes during their lunch period running errands, continuing to do work, or are away on vacation or various business trips.  It’s actually a small miracle we get as many folks as we get in the study because every one of us have extremely busy lives, especially around the work environment.  I know this in my mind… I know better.  But one week, the devil was whispering in my ear when I sat alone in the room where we normally meet… by myself.  “I guess this is it Kenny, “  he said.  “This must finally be the week they all finally decided that you’re not that great of a leader and they’re ready to give up on you.”  I had enough time to eat my lunch and even read over the study questions again.  “Where is everyone?” I asked myself.  “What did I do wrong?”  I started to examine the last year or more of Bible studies on Thursday looking for issues that could have finally broke the camel’s back with the folks who normally came to our class time.  And then one of my sisters in Christ came into the room.

“Where is everyone Ken?” she said.  Relieved to see another soul, I told her I wasn’t sure.  We both sat for a few minutes more reading and occasionally smiling at one another.  Of course the devil was still having his field day, and I was letting him.  “Yep Ken, time to hang this one up.” the devil said.  “They all know what a terrible person you are inside as does your Heavenly Father and you’re probably being punished for it!”  After a good handful of minutes I asked my sister in Christ if we should just pray before we leave and save the lesson for another time.  She agreed, so I asked her to pray.  We bowed our heads, mine partially from defeat, and she began to pray.

I think she got two words out before another sister in Christ from our group popped her head in the door.  “There you are!” she said.  “We were wondering where you were!” 

“We?” I questioned. 

“Yeah, ” she said, “we’re not supposed to meet in this room today because someone else had booked it.”  Normally we meet in that room, but occasionally someone else books it and we have to go somewhere else.  Several months ago I relinguished the scheduling of our study times to another sister in the group because organization isn’t one of my strong suits.  I simply didn’t read her meeting request thoroughly, which would have told me we were meeting elsewhere.  “There’s a whole roomful of people downstairs wondering where you both are.”

We gathered up our things and in the elevator ride down I felt ashamed.  Even though God’s always been faithful to me, I let Satan convince me that I was worth nothing and that God was punishing me somehow.  I could only see things from my own vantage point and I forgot that God sees the whole picture and He’s constantly moving me in a certain direction for my own good because He loves me.  Because I chose to trust my eyes rather than having trust that He is working in the background to make things what I need, the devil had his way with my mind.  That old liar made me forget the past I have with God and traded it with doubt.  If I review the trust buckets of everyone I know, why didn’t I look at the devil’s?  His is an old rusty bucket with bullet holes in it.  It never has trust in it because, well… he’s the devil.  He hates me and even more… he hates the God I serve.  He’s done nothing but try to destroy me since the day I was born, and yet I took my eyes off of the One who’s trust bucket is a million times bigger than anyone else’s and is constantly spilling over and believed the devil’s lies.  Why is that?  Why would I do that?  Why did the Israelites do it in the desert after leaving the bondage of Egypt?  “We want to go back!” they told Moses.  “We’re hungry and thirsty here in this desert and we would rather go back into bondage than suffer this way!”  They didn’t trust that God would see them through, even though they had witnessed many miracles of God and had been delivered from slavery.  I have been blessed by God so many times in my life, even when I don’t deserve it, and yet I didn’t trust Him.  Why?

I think I, as well as the Israelites, stopped looking at God and started looking at ourselves and our own circumstances.  When you do that, Satan can have his way with you.  You’re distracted and he knows it and he’ll use that to his advantage.  Especially when you’re on track to do something spectacular for the Lord!  We all have to understand that God’s trust bucket should always be full, huge and overflowing.  We all have to trust that He loves us and are letting things happen to us to shape us, not to purposely hurt us.  Look back at your history.  He’s never let anything happen to you that wasn’t for your own good.  Even the really awful stuff is intended to make you something that will bring Him glory.

So when we finally made it into the right room, it was full of smiling brothers and sisters in Christ.  We even had two visitors!  We had a great bible study and discussion with one another and I feel the Holy Spirit had his way in the room.  So one moment I struggled in my own despair… the next I was blessed beyond measure.  Had I trusted that God was working in the background and would provide that blessing, I would have been fine no matter what the circumstances.  But no… I listened to the liar.  Thank the Lord He doesn’t feel the same way about me.  He often gives me trust and love when I don’t deserve them at all.  He fills up my trust bucket with His Son’s blood so that it overflows and spills out.  Even if it was empty because of my carelessness, he fills it up again anyway.  Great example, right?

So if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go and take everyone’s trust bucket down from the shelf in my mind and fill them up again.  Why?  Don’t they deserve the trust level they have in their bucket?  Maybe.  But God’s got so much spilling over from his right now, I got a little extra to spare.  I gotta put it somewhere, right?

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