I’ve been studying and experiencing an important lesson about trusting God. Both the Book of James and the realities of life are challenging me to have faith in God and express that faith with sold-out surrender. Growing in trust has been on my mind so much that I decided to write this installment of my MAPS about it. Every week I write a Message About Purpose and Strategy. Look at those two key words: purpose and strategy. Our purpose explains why we exist. Our strategies explain how we can accomplish our purpose. So consider for a moment if trusting in God is our purpose or a strategy to employ that helps us to actualize our purpose. What do you think? Is trusting God a means or an end? Is it why we exist, or how we arrive at our goal? My thought is that trusting in God is both. Do you see it this way? God made us to experience relationship with him. He desires our faith. And that same faith is how we grow spiritually. A beautiful verse about the significance of faith is found in Romans 1:17 - “For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: ‘The righteous will live by faith.’”