tis so sweet
/’Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus,
Just to take Him at His Word;
Just to rest upon His promise,
And to know, “Thus saith the Lord!”
Jesus, Jesus, how I trust Him!
How I’ve proved Him o’er and o’er;
Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus!
Oh, for grace to trust Him more!
- Louisa M. R. Stead, "Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus," 1882
We sang this hymn in church a couple weeks ago. It's one of my favorites . . . simple, yet filled with the kind of power that could move mountains - or perhaps, sometimes more difficult, move hard and stubborn hearts.
I'll be real: it doesn't always taste sweet to trust in Jesus. Sometimes it tastes more like the salt of midnight tears, the bitterness of loss, the sharp acid taste of rejection. In fact, I find that more often than not, the decisive act of trust is the hardest flavor to choke down . . . until it is done, and the taste lingering on my tongue slowly turns sweet and mellow, like summer's morning sun.
And it's a funny thing to find that the more often I brave that acrid experience of stepping out in faith, the more I crave the sweetness that follows.
I think of Abraham, who first met God in the land of Haran and was asked to exchange what he was familiar with for an unexpected promise:
Now the Lord said to Abram, "Go forth from your country, and from your relatives and from your father's house, to the land which I will show you; and I will make you a great nation, and will bless you, and will make your name great; and so you shall be a blessing." - Genesis 12:1-2
Though he'd only just met Him, Abram took God at His Word, rested on His promise. At seventy-five years old he left everything he knew for a foreign land with nothing to go on but "Thus saith the Lord."
It was hard. It was bitter. And yet in the end, standing by the oak of Moreh and looking out on the fruitful hill country below, he knew only the sweet aftertaste, and could respond only in worship (Genesis 12:4-8). His faith had proved God faithful.
This was far from the last time Abram would be asked to trust God - and many times, he failed, too fearful of the pain. But every difficult obedience, every proof of God's lovingkindness only brought him into a sweeter supernatural intimacy - a sweetness he would give anything to have more of.
Anything.
Now it came about after these things, that God tested Abraham, and said to him . . . "Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you." So Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him and Isaac his son; and he split wood for the burnt offering, and arose and went to the place of which God had told him. . . . Abraham stretched out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. - Genesis 22:1a, 2-3, 10
Imagine the gall of this moment, especially for an elderly father who had spent his whole life longing for this boy.
Yet it's as if these decades of obedience have conditioned him only for the sweet part of trust.
But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, "Abraham, Abraham!" And he said, "Here I am." He said, "Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me. . . . By Myself I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this thing and have not withheld your son, your only son, indeed I will greatly bless you." - Genesis 22:11-12, 16-17a
Again his trust proves the faithfulness of God - to himself, first of all, and then to the generations of believers who would be strengthened by his story centuries later.
Every obedience made the trusting sweeter, even when the requirements seemed impossible.
This is our God, my friends: the one and only thing so good that, when you are at the pinnacle of satisfaction with Him, you are still desperately hungry for more.
Tis so sweet to trust in the God of Abraham - the patient, faithful, relational, promise-keeping God, who - millennia later - would prove His devotion to His people by slaying His own Son, His only Son, for us.
Oh, for grace to trust Him more.
