Trust. It is one of those funny really deep words that we like to just throw around a lot, and over the past few months, God has really been redefining my definition of trust and how I use it. Trust is a subject that has hindered people’s relationship with God from the beginning. I think I can say pretty confidently that everyone has some form of trust issues resulting from their past, I know I do. I mean let’s be honest, between strangers, friends and family we can become pretty screwed up in the whole trust arena.
Well, this whole process of thinking and redefining trust started in Bangkok a couple of months ago when Dave and I were waiting for the girls stuck in Miami. We were talking about the topic of trusting and it really got me thinking. I have heard many people say that, “Trust is gained slowly and lost quickly,” and this is true. Because of how often we have been hurt in our pasts by other people, we already have a predisposition to not trust people until they have earned it. I began to think about my own trust issues, and about the levels of trust that I have in my life. The few people that I have deep trust in and let see all of me, to the shallow relationships that I have, where trust hasn’t been “won” yet. While pondering over these relationships I have come by and seeing the good and bad things that have come from trust issues… I began to wonder how my relationship with God is affected by my trust. More specifically how are my fears of trusting people affecting my trust in the Lord? Does God have to earn my trust?
I began to look at scripture about trust… Proverbs 3:5-6 says “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.” What does it mean to trust in the Lord? So often Satan gets us to doubt the character of God, and in that not trust in who God says he is. Eve didn’t trust God’s words when the devil was tempting her… he got her to doubt what God had actually said. Abraham trusted the Lord to raise his son from the dead after he sacrificed him, but didn’t trust God multiple times when it came to protecting himself and his beautiful wife from the kings and their lust. Scared that the kings would kill him to take his wife for her good looks he lied to save himself…
These are my ancestors, and the family that I was born into… a family of sin. The more I think about this the more I realize that the devil’s tactics haven’t changed much, and he still is trying to get
me to doubt God’s character, to put my trust in the people and things of this world. Truly getting and understanding the fact that God is the only thing I can put my trust in that won’t fail me, that won’t let me down… (This is how God described Himself to Moses when he passed by him on Mount Sinai in exodus 34 ” I am the Lord, the merciful and gracious God. I am slow to anger and rich in unfailing love and faithfulness. I show this unfailing love to many thousands by forgiving every kind of sin and rebellion. Even so I do not leave sin unpunished, but I punish the children for the sins of their parents to the third and fourth generations.”)….It is kinda a big pill to swallow.
I am realizing more and more that trust, is a much bigger problem than most people admit and even more of a problem than most people are willing to deal with. I by no means claim that I have completely grasped everything God has for me to learn about the subject, but my eyes have definitely been opened to reality of the depth of the problem. I don’t want something like a lack of trust to hinder my relationship with my Father in the future….
