This past Friday, I had the absolute pleasure of getting to spend time with one of my closest friends. She and I first met in college where we both studied music, but we didn’t really become close until after I had graduated college. We initially interacted through a person that was mutually close to the both of us, but our friendship soon took on a life of its own as we sought to get to know each other more on a one-on-one basis. One of the beautiful things that I love about our friendship is that we both push each other to actively pursue God. It’s very much an “iron sharpens iron” kind of friendship, but it’s one that’s rooted in lots of love. That love doesn’t just stand on its own though. There’s another key element to the relationship that we have, and that is trust. We trust that no matter what, whether we agree or disagree, we will love each other through all that we do. We trust that we will both listen to the other, that we will be honest with each other, even when the other person may not totally want to hear what we’re saying, and that we will pray for each other constantly. Trust is a vital part of all relationships, whether that be romantic, familial, in friendships, or in the workplace. In order to have well functioning relationships with others, you have to have some degree of trust. Now here are a couple of questions: How do we trust God when it’s hard? How do we trust others when it’s harder? For many Christians, I think there is at least a basic understanding of how powerful the Lord is, yet I also think that we struggle to trust him with many of the things in our lives. Trusting when things are easy is one thing, but trusting when things are hard is another. I know I certainly struggle with this. My friend and I have spent a lot of time as of late discussing what trust in the Lord really means, what it looks like with Him, and how that trust is enacted in our daily lives. That’s what I want to talk about tonight.

The closer you get to someone, the more you allow yourself to be vulnerable to that person, and that requires trust. However, I think that we often fail to fully realize what trust means at least according to God’s Word. 

Isaiah 26:3 You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.

I love the way this verse is phrased. We are kept in perfect peace BECAUSE we trust in God. It’s not the other way around. We don’t find peace first and then trust him. He tells us “put your faith in me, THEN you will find peace”. Speaking from experience, this is something that I struggle with greatly. When it comes to trusting God, I usually hit a wall at some point. Sure, I trust him to an extent, but that extent usually involves the things I can control. When something is totally out of my hands, in the hands of others, or out of my sight and only visible in the eyes of the Lord, I have a hard time putting my faith in his power. In my last post, I talked about waiting, what it means to wait as God works in our lives, and how we are called to use each and every day in service of him, even when we have something in our hearts that we are hoping for. Right now, I’m going through a period of waiting in my life, where I’m hoping for something that is totally out of my control. That’s tough for me. With each passing day, I feel my trust wanting to wane. The funny thing though is that my trust is strongest on the days where I set my eyes on God, and weakest on the days where I set my eyes on myself. This is why I talked about actively waiting last week. Sitting and waiting makes it a lot harder to trust God, because my mind is not “stayed on you [on God]”. Trusting in the Lord is an actual choice that we can make. We don’t deserve God’s grace, his love, or his peace. We only gain it when we actively seek to put our faith in him, continue his mission, and stay on him. 

We don’t typically treat our relationships on Earth in the same way. Trust is usually something that we give only when it’s earned. Once someone shows us that we can be at peace with them, then we start to let them into our lives in deeper ways. We don’t treat trust as a choice, moreso as something that is given like a precious gift. When this gift is broken, we are hurt, just like we would if someone broke a birthday gift that we’ve given to them. I think this is why we struggle so much with trusting people once they’ve hurt us. It’s hard to want to keep giving a gift to somebody who doesn’t treat that thing like a gift. It’s here where I feel that we lose sight of the example God sets for us. If you want to see more evidence about how trust is a choice, look at Proverbs 1:33.

Proverbs 1:33 But whoever listens to me will live securely and in confident trust, and will be at ease, without fear or dread of evil.

This is another example where God places the action (trust) before the result (ease), not the other way around. He doesn’t tell us that our life of ease and lack of fear will lead us to trust him more. He says “listen to me” and then we “will be at ease”. 

This all seems very radical in comparison to how we usually trust each other. It’s especially uncomfortable to think about when we are feeling hurt or in pain. Like I said before, the closer we get to others, the more vulnerable we allow ourselves to be, and with that comes the need to trust. Trusting loved ones can be tricky, because we count on them to care for us in ways we don’t count on others. We trust them to make us feel validated, and not hurt us where we are most sensitive. When someone fails to do these things, we feel so much pain, and we don’t want to trust that person anymore. We take our trust elsewhere, placing it in the people that we think will never let us down, or placing it in ourselves. How do we follow this radical example God sets of trusting others first before the peace and the ease comes, especially when we feel like we have so much reason not to? I think the answer can be found in Proverbs 10, Luke 6, and 1 Corinthians 13.

Proverbs 10:12 “Hate stirs up conflict, but love covers all wrongs”.

Luke 6:35 “Instead, love your enemies, do good, and lend expecting nothing in return. If you do, you will have a great reward. You will be acting the way children of the Most High act, for he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked people”.

1 Corinthians 13:6-7 “Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.

It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres”.

It’s hard to look at somebody who has hurt us and trust them. It’s hard to look at God and ask him to take hold of the things we can’t control. Really, control is what this all comes back too. We don’t want to let ourselves feel vulnerable or open when we don’t have a reason to be, or when we’ve been given plenty of reasons not to be. Thankfully, God doesn’t cast us off when we fail him, hurt him, and sin. Our multitude of mistakes are covered by grace, mercy and love. Just like Proverbs 10:12 says, “love covers all wrongs”. The Lord doesn’t have much reason to trust us anymore than we do to trust the people around us, yet he continues to welcome us back into his arms and heart if we love him and continue to pursue him. When we place that same kind of love at the center of our motivation to trust, we can find peace in God.

Love is a very powerful thing, and I plan to write about that in my next blog post, but I am so grateful to everyone who has continued to read what I’ve written so far!