“You Can Trust Me” — Hearing God’s Voice of Reassurance in Disorienting Times

By David Tingley

I recently went on a bike ride with my two sons to drop something off at our local town hall. Since we were on our bikes, we took the “back way” to avoid the main street. But this route alteration bewildered my youngest son, who is 6 years old, especially when I dropped back to let him ride in the front. After several pedal strokes, he exclaimed, “Daddy, I don’t know the way!” with fear and anxiety animating his voice. “I know you don’t,” I promptly replied, riding back up to him. “But I do. You can trust me.”

Woah. In that moment, I sensed the Lord saying those same words to me, because I often don’t know the way either — the way to be a good husband and father in this season of life. The way to write my dissertation while also getting college-level teaching experience and making enough money for my family. The way to navigate a rapidly changing world, church, and university landscape without losing hope in God’s calling on my life.

“Lord, I don’t know the way…” I often pray, with fear and anxiety animating my voice. But if I listen long enough, searching the Scriptures with an ear to the Spirit’s voice that illuminates them, I can hear the Lord’s voice of reassurance: “I know you don’t. But I do. You can trust me.”

By Faith

As we survey the Scriptures, we see people who didn’t know the way either — the way to be faithful to their traditions while also being receptive to the move of God’s Spirit in their midst. The way to balance their desire to serve God in specific ways with the reality of the opportunities in front of them. The way to best tell others around them about the Way, the Truth, and the Life. But when they didn’t know the way, God did, and they could trust Him.

In this way, I have often resonated with Abraham’s journey with God. The writer of the New Testament letter/sermon of Hebrews conveys that journey in this way: “By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going” (Hebrews 11:8). I can almost hear Abraham pondering (in the words of my 6-year-old), “Daddy, I don’t know the way…. But you do, and I trust you.”

The operative phrase in Hebrews 11:8 is “by faith” (Greek pistei), which occurs 18 times in Hebrews 11, which is appropriately known as “the faith chapter.” It takes faith in God to walk with God. “You can trust me,” God says. “I know the way.”

Hebrews further justifies Abraham’s walk of faith by directing it not toward any old wishful target but toward God Himself, who is pleased with our trust (11:6). Abraham was “looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God” (Hebrews 11:10). This reflects the words of Genesis, where the Abraham story originates. Abraham “believed (that is, ‘trusted’) the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness” (Genesis 15:6, parentheses mine).

In Koine Greek, the original language of the New Testament (and of the Septuagint, the version of the Old Testament upon which most of the New Testament writers relied) the word pistis, rendered “faith” in English, can be made into a verb, pisteuō. This is something our English verb “believe” doesn’t transfer very well conceptually. For this reason, John Withers — the founding pastor of the church I currently attend, as well as a former radio (and current podcast) host in Lexington, Kentucky — is famous for asking this question: “How are you faith-ing today?” Faith requires more than the mental acknowledgement of simply believing things about God; it requires the trust of walking with Him — especially when we don’t know the way forward!

Not by Sight

Another New Testament writer, the Apostle Paul, argues that our confidence in life comes from walking “by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7). Paul also acknowledges, like Hebrews, that this faith-walk is pleasing to God (5:9).

Now, Paul’s faith-walk certainly involved serving the Lord in a specific way. In his letter to the Galatians, he notes that even the apostles entrusted with sharing the gospel with their fellow Jews (i.e., Peter and James) came around to see that God had given him “the responsibility of preaching the gospel to the Gentiles” (Galatians 2:7 NLT). So, when Paul is given the green light from the Lord to venture on to new places and peoples with the message of Jesus that had changed his life, we can imagine he was eager to do so.

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 “Faith requires more than the mental acknowledgement of simply believing things about God; it requires the trust of walking with Him — especially when we don’t know the way forward!”

But the New Testament book of Acts, which charts Paul’s journeys as a gospel-preaching church planter, notes an interesting layover in Paul’s travel plans. Instead of carrying on “by faith” into the region of Asia (present-day Turkey), Paul and his co-workers, which include Silas and Timothy at this point, are “forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia” (Acts 16:6 CSB). Instead, as the narrative continues, we learn that God had called them to preach in Macedonia (a region or two west of Asia) instead (Acts 16:10).

Paul was called to walk with God, not ahead of Him, and so are we. My wife and I wrote our own marriage vows to share with each other at our wedding. When I was writing mine, the phrase “I’ll walk with you” came to heart and mind, so I used it as a repeated phrase in my vows. Little did I know at the time, however, that the phrase would come to serve as a check on my marriage over the years, especially in moments and seasons when I’m not walking with my wife in the demands and decisions of our life together.

Likewise, walking with God by faith is part and parcel of following and serving Jesus. As I am often reminded of in Psalm 37:4, the command to “Take delight in the LORD” precedes the promise “and he will give you your heart’s desires” (CSB).

Now, back to Paul. His heart’s desire was for everyone — “the Jew first and also the Gentile” (Romans 1:16b NLT) – to experience the power of God’s salvation in and through the gospel of Jesus — even in the first century region of Asia! But just because Paul was withheld from preaching there at the beginning of his second gospel journey doesn’t mean he would never go there. In fact, at the end of his second journey, we are told in Acts 18:19–21 that he makes a stop in Ephesus — a coastal city in, you guessed it, Asia.

While Paul’s ministry in Ephesus at the end of his second journey was brief — he did manage to fit in a few synagogue debates — God was at work there beyond his capacity. If Paul was God’s starting pitcher in Ephesus (albeit only for a few short innings), Apollos comes in as a competent reliever, followed by Priscilla and Aquila (Acts 18:24–26).

Back when Paul was forbidden from living out his gospel-preaching dream in Asia, he — like Abrahm before him and my 6-year-old after — may have cried, “I don’t know the way!” But God did, and he could trust God not only to lead him, but also to be at work beyond him in Ephesus.

Christ’s Ambassadors

Later in life, Paul writes to Timothy, who was struggling to shepherd the church in Ephesus. Reflecting on their shared sufferings, Paul writes, “Yet this is no cause for shame, because I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day” (2 Timothy 1:12, italics mine). “I know whom I have believed.” Trusted. “Faith-ed.” When we don’t know the way, confused by the route we’re on, He does. We can trust Him to be at work in, through, and beyond us in the process.

Shortly after my unknowingly prophetic word to my son on our bike ride — “You can trust me” — we made it to our destination. I let him put the envelope for our utility bill in the slot at the town hall office because, of course, he wanted to do it. It was my work to do, but I let him carry it out on my behalf.

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 “When we don’t know the way, confused by the route we’re on, He does. We can trust Him to be at work in, through, and beyond us in the process.”

Such is God’s call on our lives. As followers of Jesus, God invites us to carry out His work in His world, to participate in it on His behalf, as “Christ’s ambassadors” (2 Corinthians 5:20). When we don’t know the way His work and call are taking us, He does. As confusing, frustrating, and scary as that can be, we can trust Him to lead us — “by faith.” We may not know the way, but He does. And we can trust Him.
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