35 Do not, therefore, fling away your fearless confidence, for it carries a great and glorious compensation of reward. 36 For you have need of steadfast patience and endurance, so that you may perform and fully accomplish the will of God, and thus receive and carry away [and enjoy to the full] what is promised. – Hebrews 10:35-36, Amplified Bible (AMP)

Have you ever been disappointed in someone because he or she broke a promise to you? Or, perhaps, he or she behaved in a way that made you feel betrayed? I daresay that if you have any amount of life behind you, you’ve been disappointed by people you once trusted to never let you down. The reality is that people let us down all of the time, either on purpose or by accident, and we shouldn’t be all that surprised when it happens.

Unfortunately, we often act as if God Himself has let us down in some way. In response to some unanswered prayer or in response to some awful circumstance that He has allowed in our lives, we fret over God’s apparent betrayal of the trust we have placed in Him. The reason we feel betrayed is because we have fallen into a horrible way of thinking: we’ve come to believe that God’s job is to make our circumstances easy and peaceful, now and forever. When our circumstances don’t match up with our expectations, we can foolishly wonder whether or not God intends to keep His promises to never leave us and to take our cares upon Himself.

God never intended for us to interpret His promises to mean He would supply immediate pain relief to unwelcome circumstances. We want His promises to mean that, but they don’t. They do mean, however, that when we ask Him to, God will provide us with the abilities to endure and to grow during periods of pain. (See 2 Corinthians 12:7-9.) The problem is that we rarely ask Him for His enabling. At the moment we think He has broken His promises to us, we discard our confidence in Him, place our confidence in ourselves, and work to solve our own problems without consulting God’ Wisdom. When we place our confidence in ourselves, we will suffer shame. But if we will maintain our confidence in Him, we will someday enjoy a great and glorious compensation of reward.

Don’t make the mistake of casting aside your trust in God like you would cast aside your trust in an unfaithful person. God never lacks in faithfulness. He absolutely will fulfill His promises, and He is the only One worthy of our complete confidence.

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