Trusting Him

God has been teaching me a lot about trusting in Him. I wish I could go into all the stories of how He has proven Himself, but I want to get to the point of this post.

Something I just read in my quite time was a verse in Isaiah 26. There have been several times where God used this book of the Bible to change my entire view of something with just a few short words.

The verse I would like to call attention to is verse 3, which reads, “You keep him in in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You.”

Something I’ve found is I want the peace before I trust. I want the guarantee of safety before I fall.

I don’t want to trust God first, because that means I actually have to trust Him. And trust is scary. If I have a guarantee that He will be there to guide me and give me that “peace that surpasses all understanding” then I could “trust” that He would help me through. I could trust Him if I knew beforehand what to expect.

The problem with me is simply this:

I don’t want to have to trust that what He says is true. I don’t want to be dependent on only His word. I want proof before I lay my life on His mysterious plans. I want to know.

A message I recently heard struck me. The speaker said something to the effect of, “what we really want is answers. What God wants is intimacy. But we only say we want intimacy with God. When we are really honest with ourselves, we want to know the answers to our questions so we can do it ourselves. We don’t want to need God.”

I realized that this statement rings partly true for me. I desire an intimate relationship with God, but sometimes what I want my answers, my peace, my assurance in life more than the opportunity to better know and trust My Creator. In the moments where I have to choose between really putting my trust in Him, and freaking out because I don’t understand, I don’t see it as a time to let go and get to know God better, I see it as a time where I become really focused on my own problems and I talk myself into trying to wait for God to just show up and fix everything for me.

I’ve been looking at it all wrong…

Another thing I have found is that, for me, is more than one stage to trusting God… There is trusting Him to take care of me, and for a long time that’s all I thought trust was. Saying, “God, I’m giving this up to You.” But… I’ve found that for me, there is a stage of trust that happens before that. I have to trust that God really means it when He says He has the best in mind for me. I have to trust that His Word is in fact trustworthy. Not only do I have to say, “God, I trust You with *fill in the blank*” but I have to say, “God, I trust in who You say You are. I trust Your promises. I trust that You love me, that You created me with a plan and a purpose, and I trust that though I don’t understand something right now, that You do. And I trust that You have a reason for keeping me from understanding.” And only then can I say, “So God, please take my *fill in the blank*”

The next verse addresses this a little bit, “Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord God is an everlasting rock.”

Rocks are firm. They are powerful. It only took a pebble from David to kill a giant named Goliath. But God isn’t just a pebble; He is an Everlasting Rock, the boulder of our salvation. He will not be moved. His words are forever, His character is forever, and time is not a point of worry for Him. He is all powerful, almighty, all knowing, all loving, and the Master of this plan we call Life.

I have learned that these truths are something I have to trust first, before I can manage to let the grip on my fears go. I have to constantly, consistently trust God's promises. I can’t just trust them when a Pastor says so in church, or when I’m reading my Bible. I have to always know that God is who He says He is…

See, when I’m sitting with my Bible, it’s easy to believe the words. But when I leave my sanctuary with Jesus, and go into the world of discomfort, deadlines, harsh people, oversights and under-preparation, self-consciousness and people who do not make it easy, doubts and firm reasons to doubt… it’s hard to trust. When I’m standing on the bus, and the guy next to me has definitely not showered, and I haven’t eaten all day, I know for sure I’m going to be late to my next class, and my little doubts and worries are rushing around my head and I just want to throw my hands up and scream…

That’s when it’s hard to remember. And that’s when I start to take back the things I said I trusted God with. Those are the moments when I subconsciously wonder if “Just trusting” is really enough, and those are the moments I start to lose faith in who God says He is.

With brokenness, He can mend. With wounds, He can heal. With doubts, He can calm. And when I don’t have answers, He can become my resting place.

Not knowing is a blessing. Because when I don’t know, it leads me into a state of dependence where God shows me who He is Himself. And life isn’t about answers. I’m actually glad it isn’t. I’m thankful that God knows me well enough to know that He has to withhold things from me, so that I will search for Him in ways that I didn’t know existed before. When I don’t have it all figured out, I find parts of God I wouldn’t have known how to look for otherwise.