The Place of Trust

"It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man." --- Psalms 118:8


In the Bible, there are 594 chapters before Psalms 118 and 594 after Psalms 118. Psalms 117 is the shortest chapter in the Bible, and Psalms 119 is the longest. 594 plus 594 equals 1188. The exact middle point in the Bible is today's subject verse, Psalms 118:8. Of the ten essences of God, "Coincidentiality" is NOT one of them (I doubt that's even a word, but you get my point). However, "Sovereignty," "Veracity," and "Omnipotence" are. In the complete canon of scripture there are no coincidences. The character of God demanded that every "jot" and "tittle"of His Word be Divinely revealed to us, and in 96 AD this revelation was complete.

I worked for an architect my first year in college (we built a Jewish temple of all things!!!!). I can tell you from experience that no part of that building, down to the smallest detail, was constructed unless it got the approval of the architect. God is the master architect and His Word is His greatest Work. It should come as no suprise that the middle verse, the exact middle point in the Bible is a crucial concept that we must remember. It's a reminder put there by God for us so that we cannot miss it. It reads "It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man."

There is nothing more dangerous than to place all your faith in a human being. I have to remind myself of this all the time. I have met some absolutely amazing people in my 13 years as a Christian. Men and women whom God uses to mentor and pray for me to become the man God wants me to be. I communicate with these people on a daily basis. Thankfully, they understand this verse and have taught it to me so that I would know it is not them that I should place my faith in. I understand the truth of God's Word is not dependent upon the lives of fallen people.

Anytime free will is placed in the arena of spiritual warfare, the possiblity of disaster is always present. The reason God put this verse in the middle of His Word is because He knows we have a tendency to place "impressive" and influential people on a high pedestal. We hold them to a higher standard than other people because they are such an integral part of our lives. They are the last people we expect to take a hard fall. When these people don't live up to the standard that we set for them, our natural reaction is to view their shortcomings as evidence of the ineffectiveness of God's Word. This is completely wrong and very dangerous, and it happens everyday. I don't expect any of my mentors to fall and I don't expect to fall, but if they do or if I do it is only because we are not living what we are teaching. It will be a result of our lack of application of God's Word, not the ineffectiveness of God's Word.

Each of us has our own race to run. The only one worthy of our complete faith is Jesus Christ, and He is perfect so we do not have to worry about being let down by Him. We can use others to help us along the way, but we cannot allow them to trip us up and cause us to fall short of the finish line. As long as we keep our focus on Christ and Christ alone, we will finish. The reason why blinders are put on horses is because it forces them to focus on their individual route. In the same way, we need to put on our blinders everyday and not allow anyone to keep us from getting where we need to be.