When things are going haywire and the storms of life begin to swirl, is there someone that you trust to always be there for you? Someone who will take care of you? Someone who will listen and bring reason to the chaos? Someone who will hold you tight and show you that you’re safe? And when the storms are gone and the doldrums of everyday life return, can you trust them to still be there?
What does it mean to trust someone?
According to the dictionary, “trust” is a firm belief or confidence in the honesty, integrity, reliability and justice of another person. It’s confident expectation based on hope.
And generally that hope is based on past history.
I’ll admit that I have a hard time trusting. Mainly because my experience is that people don’t stick around. Death of a parent at a young age ingrains that in your mind, and then bad relationships confirm it. We want to find someone to be our rock in times of trouble. We hope that someone will have our back as we fight in the bunkers of life. But many of us never experience relationships based on mutual love, respect and trust. So we don’t trust. We can’t. It’s better not to get our hopes up than to have to deal with broken trust.
So what about God? Can we trust Him?
It’s a loaded question. Is God trustworthy? Yes. Do we know Him well enough to place our trust in Him? That’s what we have to find out.
Most of us want to believe that we trust God. Do we trust Him with our life? Certainly. If we thought we were facing our last moments we would call out to Him and trust that Jesus would be there waiting to take our hand and lead us home to heaven. But do we trust Him with our struggles in life? I’m not so sure.
My problem is that there’s always a “but” in my trust of God. I’ll say things like:
“Lord, I trust You, but I don’t understand.”
“Lord, I trust You, but I’m not strong enough to get through this.”
“Lord, I trust You, but I don’t trust myself.”
“Lord, I trust You, but…”
The “but” cuts God off. It turns the focus from God, His power and His sovereignty––to me and my weakness. If I really trusted God, there wouldn’t be a “but”. True trust would be:
“Lord, I trust You. Period.”
No buts about it. If God is the Creator of the universe, if He truly stands outside of time and knows the second half of my story, if He holds all power in His hand, if He can crack the hardest of hearts and knows every hair on my head, He is more than capable of handling my current crisis.
God is a mighty warrior who never loses a battle. He embodies power, wisdom, peace and healing. He knows all, sees all, hears all, and responds when His children call. He is the only person who truly has our best interest at heart––always––without any prejudice or self-interest.
God wants us to hope in Him. He wants us to experience His love, grow in trust because of that relationship, and open up to living a joyful life with Him. He is absolutely worthy of our trust. He will never leave us. He will never turn against us. He will never want anything but the best for us. God wants us to know Him intimately as our Father, our Savior, and our Friend so that we can say without hesitation, “Lord, I trust You. Period.”
“Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.” Proverbs 3:5-6
May I pray?
God, it’s not easy to trust others when our trust has been betrayed so many times. And even though we may know that You are trustworthy, we still have a hard time trusting that You’re going to help us in our time of need. We don’t trust You because we can’t see beyond our current crisis. Or we don’t trust You because we know the outcome we think should happen but we’re afraid Your plan may be different. Help us today to acknowledge our weaknesses, to let go of our desires for a particular outcome, and to put our full trust in You. Period. Amen.
Q4U: What would it take for you to be able to say, “Lord, I trust You. Period.”?