I Find Trusting God Is Difficult. Pt. 1

In today’s world it is easy to think there is no God, but when people say that it usually means they have no relationship with Him. Let’s think for a minute: What does it mean to trust someone? Both the Biblical Hebrew and Greek words for trust have the meaning of ‘believe’, ‘commit to’ or ‘have faith in’. In our secular relationships, no one trusts a person at a first meaning. Trust is one of those nebulous feelings that we really don’t understand. But we all have friends or family members we trust. How did we get to that trust? There is one answer to that question: Time. We begin to trust someone after a period of time passes. During that time, whether consciously or not, we are evaluating that person to see how he or she responds to life situations. We listen to what that person says. After awhile we begin to develop a connection, maybe even a bond, and eventually come to the point of trust.

So I have to ask the question: When people say there is no God, how do they know? Have they tried to talk with Him? Do they listen to what He has to say about His Son and their lives? Have they read the Bible, even one chapter?

So if trust requires relationship then learning to trust God requires spending time with Him. There are two ways to do that: Read the Bible and pray. Before I became saved, I sort of knew the Bible was a good thing to have in my house, but it sort of laid there on the table and was seldom opened. When I became saved I thought, “OK, it is time to learn about God and Jesus.” I have read through the Bible several times; the first time I just read until I got to the end. That’s not the kind of reading I’m talking about here. Getting to know God by reading His Word, requires us to think about what we are reading. Meditate on it. Ask myself the question, “How does this passage apply to my life?” The first time I read through the Bible, it took about 9 months. I ‘checked the box’ and said ‘OK, now what?’ When I read with meditative thought, the reading was slowed way down. This time it took about 3 years. But boy, what a difference. The first time: essentially no value. The second time: huge value. The thing is, I wasn’t reading with the intent to learn about God; I just thought it was a good thing to do. But in the process things began to happen. I began to realize that God has character, values, ethics, and worthiness. These were things I had pursued all the previous years of my life, so discovering them in the Word made me even more curious.

The other way to know God is to pray. This is a topic bandied about a lot, but there is a problem. Many church denominations are highly liturgical by which I mean they have certain ways of doing things. They are done in certain ways and at certain times. When prayer is constrained that way it is less effective in my opinion. Prayer is communication with God. It can be as simple as saying, “God, I had a tough day today.” Did you know that being angry with God and yelling at Him is also prayer?

Next time we’ll look at how one comes to trust God through prayer.