Trusting God

The older I get, the more I realize that I have no idea what it means to trust in God. When I was younger, and feeling invincible, I thought it meant something along the lines of: Trust God and everything will be okay. Now, when I am older and jaded and disappointed, I see it for what it really is: Trust God. Period.

There is so much to feel sad and discouraged about in this world. People hurt other people. We all die. Babies get sick. Kids rebel. You can spend your whole life pouring yourself into your child and they still might go astray. Life, at it's very core, feels like a crapshoot. Sorrow upon sorrow. Endless.

I know that thinking this way leads some to believe there is no God but I am the opposite. All of this garbage that a lot of us deal with day in, day out leads me to believe that there has to be a God. If there is no God, what is the point? To me, there has to be something else. Believing that God is in His heaven, even with all of the grief and destruction down here, takes a lot of faith. Sometimes my faith feels very small. But it is always there. And if I believe that God is there, then I have to trust Him.

This trust though. What exactly is it? Like I said before, I used to think it was a cause and effect kind of thing. If I trust God, He will keep me healthy. If I trust God, He will make my kids turn out into decent human beings. If I trust God, there will never be anything sad in my life. But life has a way of throwing disillusionment upon even the most optimistic of us. (And I have never claimed to be an optimist.) Once I opened my eyes and realized that life can be extremely hard at times, I wondered what this meant about God and trusting Him.

I think the whole thing comes down to this: Do I believe He is real or not? And I do, so: If He is real, then what do I know about Him? If He is real, then He is there. If He is there, then He has a purpose. If He has a purpose, then whatever I face is not a mistake. If it is not a mistake, then I can trust Him. The question isn't "Will He take this hardship away so I can trust Him again?" but rather "Can I trust Him even though I am facing this really tough thing?" It isn't about give and take and making deals with Him. It's about knowing that if He is real, then He is trustworthy. That whatever comes my way, He will still be there.

God, because of who He is, cannot lie. And He has promised to be with me no matter where I go.

If I ascend to heaven, you are there!

    If I make my bed in (hell), you are there!

9 

If I take the wings of the morning

    and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,

10 

even there your hand shall lead me,

    and your right hand shall hold me.

Psalm 139: 8-10

So I think the vital question is this: Do I trust God or not? Well, with all of the cynicism that I have accumulated over the years, I have also found that He who promised is faithful (Heb. 10:23). There has never been a time when I've been feeling discouraged that God has not come through. Maybe it's been a note from a friend, or hearing a Bible verse that seems hand-picked for me, or even simply feeling the fresh breeze on my face and a deep peace in my soul. All of it points to Someone out there who cares for me, and who never runs out of new mercies for each new day that I face.