Worthy of Trust*

27/05/2013

Worthy of Trust*

 

Trust is a precarious venture. I have yet to meet anyone who has put their trust in others and never been betrayed. It can be hard to give our trust away over and over again. Trust is earned over many encounters, encounters where loyalty needs to win out over betrayal. It cannot be expected, or demanded or rushed. It can not be easily repaired once it has been broken.

However putting too much trust in people is a plan with a giant hole in it. People are flawed and are going to let us down, in one way or another, at some point. It is ridiculous to assume otherwise. While putting our trust in Our Heavenly Father does not come with this hole. He has clearly laid out in His word what we can expect from a true relationship with Him.

When we recognise that we are at His mercy and choose to willingly accept His will, we become aware that trusting God does not work by saying “I trust God to ………….” (fill in the blank with a desire or specific wish). He is not a magic genie sent to fulfill our every request. We must establish faith in His divine justice. Therefore our trust is not fulfilled only in our comfort, but in the whole package that God has designed. A package designed to develop us to our highest potential & fulfillment, and that includes times in the desert, times in the wilderness, times on our own cross, and times we walk through hell itself.

Many of us are too afraid to even try trusting God because we are fed lies into our hearts by our inner enemies. Lies that make us doubt He is really there, or close enough to help. Lies that encourage us to forget that He loves us, or that tell us we don’t deserve His support. Lies that tell us that we have the most control over our  lives, that lead us to believe we know what is best for us, that we know what will make us happy.

There are many who proclaim to trust completely in God, yet many of us fall short when it comes to the crunch. Once we begin to take away all the things we do actually lean on, it leaves us shaky and vulnerable. We rely on our relationships, our reputations, our ability to control and manipulate. We lean on our knowledge, our careers, our financial position, on our talents and our addictions. When all of these things are stripped away, what is left?

See the problem with relying upon all these things is that they are a temporary solution, they can be fickle, or damaged, or destroyed. They are at the mercy of the world, of nature, of evil, and even God Himself.

You can be sure that if God wants us to learn to rely on Him, He can remove the success of these worldly things one by one, until their misconception of being supportive, is revealed and recognised.

Once we have begun to let go of the illusion of control and give God chances to show us His power and faithfulness, we can find opportunities to exercise our trust in Him, ranging from the small, seemingly trivial issues, right through to our most immense fears.

From my own personal experience I can testify that every time I have truly let go of my fear and accepted there is nothing I can do to change the circumstances, when I have desperately, genuinely, consciously put my cause into His hands, He has never once let me down.

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