3.070 The Speed of Trust

In Matthew 5, Jesus calls us the salt of the earth and the light of the world, reminding us that our lives are meant to preserve, illuminate, and point others to Him. This season on Savory Salt, we'll walk through the Old Testament, one verse and one thought each day. Perhaps these moments will add greater savor and brighter light to our lives as we seek to truly live as savory salt.

Hello, my friends. It's a new day with new opportunities. "Choose ye this day whom ye will serve." What is it about trust that just makes things work? We are reading this week Genesis chapters 37 through 41.

As we dive into Joseph's experience here with his brothers and being sold to Egypt, ultimately being thrown in prison. We're getting through to the story here, and he's got some interesting moments. I want to stay inside of Genesis 39, carrying off of the idea yesterday we talked about with the way that the Lord stayed with him through all of his challenges, and others saw it.

But it seemingly more here. And so I wanted to dig into it as well and talk just a little bit about this speed of trust that Joseph seems to bring in everything that he does. We get kind of this preemptive moment where you're like, "Oh, this can be good!" When we're told in verse six that Joseph was basically generally a goodly person and well-favored.

And you're like, dun, dun, dun, right? Nothing seems to happen in the Old Testament when there's a goodly person and they're well-favored that turns out well for them for some reason. And so Joseph ends up thrown in prison because of the situation with Potiphar's wife.

And yet in prison, we get this verse here. He's thrown in prison and it just seems like things keep working out even while he's in prison. Let's take a look at Genesis chapter 39 verse 21 for our verse for today.

This is the second time in this chapter that we're told the Lord's with Joseph. Let's see what it says here. 21 says, "But the Lord was with Joseph and showed him mercy and gave him favor in the sight of the keeper of the prison." Now, what's happened here? We've had Joseph's, Joseph's gained favor with his dad and then he's gained favor with his keeper, which was Potiphar inside of Potiphar's house.

And then he's gained favor with the keeper of the prison. What seems to be happening here? The Lord with him, and the way that he continues to be on the upside of things is through his ability to establish a basis of trust.

John Maxwell would call this the "Law of Solid Ground," I think it is, is what he calls this, where everything in leadership operates on a foundation of trust. Stephen M. R.

Covey wrote a book called "The Speed of Trust." And inside of it, the book basically brings two ideas up at play with "The Speed of Trust." It says, "Look, when trust is high, things can move faster and they typically can move more inexpensively in the business world." If trust is low, then things slow down quite dramatically and costs go high inside of business transactions. My friends, isn't that an interesting scenario? When trust is high in our lives, things can move faster and cheaper.

The Lord can bless us more abundantly as we build on trust. Doors can open as we do so. While doors appear to keep being slammed in Joseph's face, they keep being reopened by the Lord.

So the choices of others caused difficulties in Joseph's life, but Joseph's constant desire to build trust with people around him continually reopens the doors that have been shut in his life. That, I think, is worth time digging into for you and for me.