How can we learn to better trust in God?
When I conducted a survey of many of you last year this was one topic that came up in many of the responses. Trusting God is a common struggle and one I think we all deeply would like to improve.
I have two prayers lately I have brought to God – over and over again. I repeat them constantly during the day – just in case he didn’t hear them the first (second and third and so on) times. I beat on heaven’s door with these requests and stick them on with permanent, if not eternal, gorilla glue. My heart to God’s heart type of deep desire.
The other day my prayer became a mantra:
I will trust in you.
I WILL trust in you.
Please help me trust in you.
Trusting God isn’t a “I can do this myself” self accomplishment. Ironic isn’t it? I need to trust God to help me better trust in him.
What does trusting in God mean anyway?
Trusting in God means clinging to the knowledge we are his beloved children and he knows what is best for us. He desires the best for us too. His best.
Trusting God is remembering that God sees the whole picture with his loving wide-angle view from his heart. Our narrow focus blurs with imagined fears, constant anxieties and the “what if’s” that daily trip us up.
Trusting in God builds as we get to know him better through time in prayer, his word and being open and vulnerable as he shapes and prunes our life.
Trusting God is stepping out in faith when we don’t see the path clearly and know we teeter on the edge of the unfeasible. We ask for his strength and courage to act. We fake it till we make it knowing God is faithful and will be there with us no matter where our journey leads. We take our hands off the steering wheel and watch God do the impossible.
Trusting God means to intentionally choose his power over my powerlessness, his hope more than my hopelessness and his vision bursting open my limited point of view.
Trusting God is living a reflective life. Looking back with clear hindsight we see God’s presence and provision of just the right answer – a perfect, surprising fit.
Trusting God means to be willing to share with others our story and learn from others’ stories about God’s providence.
Brennan Manning wrote, “You will trust God only as much as you love Him.” Ouch.
Trusting God is hard. As fragile humans we take pride in our independence, our self-efficiency, our insistence on control. We fail and are frail. We want answers and want them right now, on our timetable. We approach the King of Heaven on our knees confessing our faith is incomplete without him.
Trusting God is being vulnerable enough to draw close to God even though we have been wounded when we have been open to people in the past. We’ve been hurt when we trusted others and we lump God with those who have betrayed us. But God isn’t like anyone else we know – he is greater, purer, and well, trustworthy.
Trusting God pleases God. And I do want to please God.
I want to trust God more.
I will trust in you, Lord.
I WILL trust you, Lord.
Please help me trust you more.
Let’s have a conversation about trusting God? What do you think?
I think trusting gets easier as we spiritually mature because we can look back and see where God brought us through something, so we can know He can do it again. He’s the same yesterday, today and forever. If He helped then He will help again.
You are so right, Jerri. The more we reflect and acknowledge God’s presence in our life, the easier it is to see him even in the dark. Great point.
I’ve been catching up on email and blogger friends, after a trip to Texas to visit family. How delightful you would choose to write about trust, my special word of the year for 2015. I especially appreciated this line: “Trusting God is stepping out in faith when we don’t see the path clearly and know we teeter on the edge of the unfeasible.” I’m reminded of that scene in the third Indiana Jones movie, when Harrison Ford stands on the brink of a precipice and is told to step off into thin air. By faith, Harrison does as he’s told (by his father, I think.) When he steps, an invisible but solid walkway holds him aloft. That scene has played in my mind a number of times, illustrating to me what it means to “step out” in faith. (How can we respond in faith, if we never have to embark into the unknown?) Thank you, Jean, for all these wonderful reminders of what it means to truly trust in our Heavenly Father.
I forgot about that scene from the movie and perfect for this post. Hope you had a great trip. I heard on tonights news about lots of rain and flooding in Texas. I checked with your friends there and they are ok but expecting more rain. In Ohio our weather is near perfect for the holiday weekend. Hope you have a great one!
Hi Jean! I think trust reflects spiritual maturity. Not that we aren’t mature if we have troubles with it, but more that in the end, we’re able to overcome our human doubt.
Doubt in the human world is actually a good thing. If I don’t test and question, I’ll be taken advantage of. But God is not a human (!), and remembering that, getting out of the habit of ‘checking the facts’ is the challenge for me. It takes daily commitment and grace to overcome my earthly tendency to say ‘prove it!’.
I join you in your prayer to ‘help me trust you more’.
Happy Friday 🙂
Ceil
I like that you are open and accepting of doubt. Lots of people struggle with that and feel guilty. I always think of it as a time of good debate with God and always full of lessons if you look for them to appear. have a great weekend. was so good talking with you this week.
My prayer, too, Jean. May we trust in the only One who is worthy of it. Blessings!
Trusting can be so hard, Martha. I keep trying and praying though.