Lesson Nine
TRUSTING GOD FOR WHO YOU ARE
(Chapter 11)
CENTRAL IDEA
God created us with all our abilities and disabilities for His glory. We must accept ourselves and trust God’s wisdom in creating us the way we are.
Examining Trust
Many people struggle to accept themselves as they are. For them life is just a continuous adversity, not from outside circumstances but from who they are. Their greatest need in trusting God may be to “trust God for who I am.” For those with this need, Psalm 139:13-16 has some very important and helpful things to say.
Psalm 139:13-16 teaches us that we are who we are because God Himself created us the way we are—not because of an impersonal biological process. David says to God, “You knit me together in my mother’s womb.” He pictures God as a master weaver at work in our mother’s womb. David also says, “For you created my inmost being.” The Hebrew word for “inmost being” is literally kidneys, a word used by the Jews to express the seat of longings and desires. The New International Version Study Bible says the word was used in Hebrew idiom for “the center of emotions and of moral sensitivity.” David, then, is essentially saying, “You created my personality.” And just as God was personally involved in the creation of David, so He was directly involved in creating you and me.
If I have difficulty accepting myself the way God made me, then I have a controversy with God. Obviously you and I need to change insofar as our sinful nature distorts that which God has made. Therefore, I do not say that we need to accept ourselves as we are, but as God made us in our basic physical, mental, and emotional makeup.
David praised God not because he was handsome but because God made him. The eternal God who is infinite in His wisdom and perfect in His love personally made you and me. He gave you the body, the mental abilities, and the basic personality you have because that is the way He wanted you to be. And He wanted you to be just that way because He loves you and wants to glorify Himself through you.
Self-acceptance is basically trusting God for who I am, disabilities or physical flaws and all. Certainly we will sometimes struggle with who we are. Unlike specific incidents of adversity, our disabilities and infirmities are always with us. So we have to learn to trust God in this area continually.
Psalm 139:16 says, “All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” There are two possible meanings that may be given to this verse. The first is that the span of David’s lifetime, in other words, the number of days he would live, was divinely ordained by God. But it is likely that David had in mind the other meaning in this passage: that all the experiences of his life, day by day, were written down in God’s book before he was even born. This refers not simply to God’s prior knowledge of what will occur in our lives, but to His plan for our lives.
Just as we must trust God for who we are, we must also trust Him for what we are—whether it be an engineer or a missionary, a homemaker or a nurse. The realization that God has planned our days for us should not lead us to a fatalistic acceptance of the status quo. If we have an opportunity to improve our situation in a way that will honor God, we should do so. There has to be in our lives a delicate balance between godly efforts to improve our situation and godly acceptance of those situations that cannot be changed by us.
We do have a responsibility to make wise decisions or to discover the will of God, whichever term we may prefer to use. But God’s plan for us is not contingent upon our decisions. God’s plan is not contingent at all. God’s plan is sovereign. It includes our foolish decisions as well as our wise ones.
I am where I am today, not because I have always made wise decisions or correctly discovered the will of God at particular points along the way, but because God has faithfully led me and guided me along the path of His will for me.
God’s guidance is almost always step-by-step; He does not show us our life’s plan all at once. Sometimes our anxiousness to know the will of God comes from a desire to “peer over God’s shoulder” to see what His plan is. What we need to do is learn to trust Him to guide us.
Of course, this does not mean that we put our minds into neutral and expect God to guide us in some mysterious way apart from hard and prayerful thinking on our part. It does mean, as Dr. James Packer has said, “God made us thinking beings, and he guides our minds as we think things out in his presence.”[1] God guides our minds as we think. He does not look down from heaven at our struggles to know His will and say, “I hope you make the right decision.” Rather, in His time and in His way He will lead us in His path for us.
Developing Trust
1. What truth is being taught in the following verses?
Job 10:8-11
Psalm 119:73
Psalm 139:13-14
2. a. Do you ever struggle with accepting the way God made you? Explain.
b. What is your attitude about your physical appearance?
c. What is your attitude about your personality and inner character?
d. Is your attitude pleasing to God? If it is not, how could you change your attitude?
3. a. What characteristics about yourself do you need to learn to accept?
b. What characteristics should you try to change?
c. To what extent is it all right to try to change your physical appearance?
4. In lesson 5, we looked at Exodus 4:11 and John 9:1-3. How can these verses help us to accept our imperfections?
5. How can 1 Corinthians 4:7 help us keep our good qualities in the proper perspective?
6. Restate in your own words the truths taught in these verses.
Job 14:5
Psalm 31:15
Psalm 139:16
7. How can Jeremiah 29:11 encourage you when life seems overwhelming?
8. a. What advice does Paul give to slaves in 1 Corinthians 7:21?
b. What general truth can we get from this verse?
9. a. According to Psalm 23:2-3, what does God do for us?
b. Describe a time when you felt God’s guidance in your life.
c. List some of the ways God can guide us when we are making a difficult decision.
d. Reflect on the last major decision you made. What method did you use to seek God’s guidance and to make the wisest decision?
10. Read Acts 16:6-10.
a. What specific guidance did Paul and his companions receive?
b. We are not told how the Spirit prevented them from entering Bithynia and the province of Asia, but we know that He did. From these events what do we learn about God’s guidance?
c. Does God regularly guide you in such an explicit way? Why do you suppose this is so?
11. a. Which of the daily activities that you are currently involved in do you feel God wants you to be doing?
b. Which, if any, current activities do you think God may not want you to be doing? What makes you think that?
12. If you are discontent with your present position, do you need to accept where you are with a thankful heart, or does God want you to pursue something new?
Trust in Action