Why Should We Trust God?

Trust is so easily broken and so difficult to gain.

I’ve heard that said throughout my life and it is true!

Trust is like a baby in some ways.

Babies take labor and pain to attain.

Once you have the baby, you realize how easily you could lose them.

They start small but grow bigger and they are precious.

Trust is a lot like that.

Yet, though trust is so precious, how often do people take ours and handle it carelessly?

How much more do we handle, the trust of other people, carelessly?

We are aware of how easily our own trust is broken yet we don’t really take any better care of the trust we are given from others.

I wish I could tell you that a person would come along and never break your trust…

But, I can’t.

People are imperfect and though they should always put in the effort to be trustworthy to you, they will fall short of your expectations.

Before you grow angry that the world is full of people who can’t be trusted, please consider that you are the exact same.

You don’t try to break the trust you have built with people!

Most often, you are so concerned with how the situation affects you, that you have not even considered that your decision could break trust.

Trust is so fragile and we all have had our fair share of breaking the trust of others.

Yes, we should not fully place our trust in people but that doesn’t mean we should hide everything from people, out of fear that they will fail to handle our hearts with care.

So, who can we truly trust then?

I don’t know about you, but I can’t keep all of my issues inside of me.

I need to talk about the things that are on my heart, but I don’t want to give the most delicate parts of me to people who could use it against me or tell it to the world.

Who can I trust?

The One who already knows everything that is on your heart!

Jesus!

“O Lord, You have searched me and known me. You know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thought afar off. You comprehend my path and my lying down, And are acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word on my tongue, But behold, O Lord, You know it altogether.”

Psalms 139:1-4 NKJV

He knows every thought we think, every desire we have and every secret we hide inside of us.

Since He already knows, I can trust Him with the secrets I hide from the world.

“It is better to trust in the Lord

Than to put confidence in man.”

Psalms 118:8 NKJV

However, He offers more than just an ear to hear what’s on our minds…

He doesn’t just ask us to trust Him with what’s in our thoughts, but He asks us to also trust Him with our whole hearts and our whole lives!

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.”

Proverbs 3:5-6 NKJV

God asks us to trust Him with all of our hearts.

I mean… I can trust God with my secrets and my thoughts, but I struggle trusting God with my life!

Do you ever feel that way?

I typically feel most comfortable trusting myself, when it comes to my life.

I think I understand the possible outcomes enough to trust my own judgement, when it comes to making decisions.

When I believe that I already know how something is going to turn out, trusting that God can do something unimaginable, is difficult for me.

Look at the Children of Israel when they were being freed from the bondage in Egypt.

They had permission to leave Egypt, after God sent many plagues upon pharaoh, to cause him to let them go.

They saw God perform miracles and they were set free!

However, when Pharaoh changed his mind and pursued them, to bring them back into slavery, they trusted only in the outcome they could understand.

In Exodus 14:11-12, they expressed that they would rather have stayed slaves in what they could understand than be free in a place they couldn’t understand.

Then Moses said in Exodus 14:13-14 NKJV.

“And Moses said to the people, “Do not be afraid. Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which He will accomplish for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall see again no more forever. The Lord will fight for you, and you shall hold your peace.””

Yet, holding our peace and standing still is the hardest thing to do when we think we can figure this out our way.

Why is trusting God so difficult?

The Children of Israel saw God do things that they never could understand and would never dare to imagine.

Yet, they did not trust Him when the next struggle came.

How can we just trust that God can do anything instead of believe the story we create in our minds, of what the outcome will be.

Let’s start by acknowledging some things.

We can’t control things.

We trust our own understanding because we think along the lines of what we have seen in the past.

We play it safe so we don’t get our hopes up for something incredible, and we just prepare for “good enough.”

We can’t imagine the Pharaoh actually giving permission to leave slavery, because we think we know pharaoh.

Yet, God says throughout the whole story that He was the one who hardened and softened Pharaoh’s heart.

It didn’t make sense, knowing who Pharaoh was, but God works in ways that we can’t predict or understand based on experience!

This is why God asks us not to lean on our own understanding, because our minds can’t consider what God can actually do!

“But, if I don’t make a move, my opportunity will be gone!”

“If I don’t step out in what I understand, I will be a fool and my life will not be what I wanted it to be!”

What if you make a move and it still doesn’t happen like you wanted it?

What if you step out of the amazing purpose God has for you?

Think about this:

If I can’t do anything to make happen, what I want to come to pass;

Why do I think I could make what I don’t want to happen, come to pass?

Why do I believe that me being still and trusting God with my life will be the reason nothing good happened, when my striving won’t necessarily make it happen either?

Why would being still, only for the sake of trusting God with your life, ever make God want to turn around and say

“oh well they never took a step of faith, so I’ll leave them there.”

It takes more faith to stand still, when what you want seems to be progressing beyond you, than it does to pursue what you want.