I Find Trusting God Is Difficult, Pt. 3
Many of us struggle with trust. One of the simple facts of life is that being in relationship with someone requires being vulnerable with that person and that leaves us open to hurt. I imagine all people have been hurt when they allowed themselves to be real with an important person in their life. I’ve been married three times; the first two ended in divorce, and the last because my beloved went home to her Lord. But I would give any part of my life (except my soul) to have that third wife back. For a long time I blamed the failure of the first two marriages on my wives, but the truth was that at the root of both failures was my own personal anger. I offer this personal story only to point out that life is a struggle on our best days and we can choose to move on from our failures or wallow in them.
But if we have problems trusting people, how can we possibly trust God whom we can’t see?
The answer to that question is that human relationships don’t have an instruction manual, but our relationship with God comes with a complete set of instructions: We call it the Bible. Dear reader, I would suggest that you find a Bible translation that you like and simply start reading. Don’t read as you would a novel, but read with thought. Meditate on what you read. What does the passage mean to your life? What is God saying? These are valid questions that allow us to learn about Him.
Here’s an example of what I mean. 1Corinthians 10:13 says “No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.”
This verse says a lot about God. He is faithful. He will not abandon us. Our experiences aren’t different than anyone else’s. He provides solutions. Success is possible. There are 31,102 verses in the Bible which is a lot of course, but also they give 31,102 insights into the person of God. We’ve never had that kind of information available about our human relationships have we? Here’s some of those insights:
God is boundless in His love of us.
He fully supplies all our needs (but not always our wants).
God strengthens us in our weakness
God rescues us from our temptations.
God sympathizes with us in our broken-heartedness.
He heals our diseases.
He forgives us when we sin.
God defends us in the face of attack.
God rewards us in our struggle.
(Here’s a challenge: see if you can find the verses that prove these statements.)
There are seven common areas where a person can practice trusting God. Try trusting God in your social relationships. For instance, God says in Psalm 1:1-2 that a person is blessed who chooses his friends wisely. Also, try modeling Christ in all that you do. WWJD (What would Jesus do?) is always sound advice. It is a good idea for instance to try to determine the intentions behind a friend’s behavior, and respond to their intentions, not their actions. Here’s where the trust of God comes in. Doing these things might be difficult; there is always the threat of push-back. But do them anyway and see what happens. You might just see the glow of appreciation start to shine from your friend’s face.
Next week we’ll look at more of those seven areas of trusting God.