trustworthy

Recently, I finished a Nehemiah Bible study by Kelly Minter.  She makes the Old Testament come alive and reveals applicable lessons.  I know the Bible is sufficient, and every part of it has something for us today.  I really enjoyed this study and recommend it, especially with a small group.  I also went through Ruth and recommend that one, too.

In Nehemiah 13, after Nehemiah led the people in rebuilding the wall around Jerusalem, despite enemies attacking him along the way, he went back to his previous role as the cupbearer for King Artaxerxes.  While Nehemiah was away, a person he had left in charge permitted someone to live in the house of God, and the people did not provide for the Levites (priests) as they were supposed to.  

Nehemiah came back and discovered the evil in Jerusalem.  He took measures to solve the problems and ensure that kind of evil would not happen again.  In verse 13, he says "I put Shelemiah the priest, Zadok the scribe, and a Levite named Pedaiah in charge of the storerooms and made Hanan son of Zakkur, the son of Mattaniah, their assistant, because they were considered trustworthy. They were made responsible for distributing the supplies to their fellow Levites."

They were considered trustworthy.  

Kelly writes, "The world doesn't need more wealth, strength, power, or skill as much as it desperately needs trustworthy people.  My heart is never more at rest, my soul never more at peace than when I am in the presence of a person of integrity" (153).  

She challenges the reader to listen to the Holy Spirit and confess areas where she has not been trustworthy.  She asks what gets in the way of being trustworthy and what challenges the desire to be a trustworthy person.  

This is tough.  I had a hard time thinking of even one person in my life that I consider completely trustworthy.  Because none of us are trustworthy; only God is trustworthy; only God is perfect.  He is worthy of trust, and yet we behave as if He is not because we believe lies (another of my need-to-learn lessons from this study).  Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8), and He is worthy of trust.  

Most often, I am not trustworthy, and I don't trust others, because we gossip.  Haven't we all been hurt by a rumor?  Yet we continue to gossip.  My selfishness gets in the way of my being trustworthy because I choose to do what I want to do instead of what another needs of me.  

I am reminded of a few lines in this creed:

"To walk in the way of honor, guarding the purity of our thoughts and deeds.

Being steadfast in every duty small or large. Believing that our given word is binding."

[Note: I hold in high regard our creed because it's biblical, not solely because it is the creed of my fraternity.]

I can practice being trustworthy in the little things -- following through on what I say I'll do and not repeating something a friend has told me.  Jesus said, "whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much" (Luke 16:10).  I have no idea what "much" could mean in my life, but I pray that I will become trustworthy.  

Do you consider someone in your life a trustworthy person?  What keeps you from being trustworthy?