Trust.
In the Bible, trust reveals reliance on God. It is the humble, surrendered work of trusting God, his character, and his promises. This trust goes beyond saying and believing. It’s aligning your life with what you believe. Biblical trust is based on God’s faithfulness and remembering his promises. It stands in contrast to trusting in other people, your own understanding, or worldly possessions.
God loves you. Because of his love, you can trust him through the good, the hard, and the emptying circumstances of life. He offers us reminders to take our eyes off our circumstances and look to him. It can involve a mix of emotions such as peace, doubt, even fear. Trust is our response to knowing we can rely on God.
Life of course has its ups and downs, seasons of calm and those that surprise and shake us like a terrible storm…the death of a loved one, job loss, relational distance or conflict, transitions and the unknown, chronic illness, anxiety, depression, and betrayal…examples of difficult and emptying things of life.
Trusting God is a process of relying on God’s character and his promises, even when your circumstances are unfavorable. God’s grace sustains you through the experience and helps you grow stronger.
You have this anchor of hope in Christ. This hope is stability and assurance beyond what you can affect. Every need you have finds its answer in two powerful words.
But God.
He has proven himself reliable through his acts of faithfulness again and again. It has been said, “Our relationship with God revolves around trust. And trust requires trustworthiness. Trust is based on evidence.”
Is there anything you need to trust to God today?
You and I were once dead in our sins, following the world, sons of disobedience, living the passions of our flesh, and carrying out the desires of our body and mind. “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved” (Ephesians 1-3, 4-5).
An example of trust is found in Psalm 56 where David has been promised the throne but he’s living in the wilderness, fleeing from Saul. David admits fear but reminds himself that God is present in his challenging circumstances. His confidence is well-kept in the reminder of God’s faithfulness.
God is for David.
Ps 56:3-4, “When I am afraid, I put my trust in you. In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust, I shall not be afraid. What can flesh do to me?”
God knew the details of David’s circumstances.
Ps 56:8-11, “You have kept count of my tossings, put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book? Then my enemies will turn back in the day when I call. This I know, that God is for me. In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I shall not be afraid. What can man do to me?”
God is attentive. He kept count of David’s tossing. David was a war hero for whom his best friend had risked his life. He was now a man without these securities. All he had to offer God was prayer, praise, and his tears. And he trusted that God kept count of them all. He came empty-handed to his only hope…but God.
We can bring our needs and our nothing to God.
What would it look like if you remind yourself of God’s character and trust him with what concerns you today?
Ask God to speak life into the brokenness of your heart. Admit when you are worn and weak and struggle to see the way through circumstances. But God—He is always making THE way for His children.
There’s a song with the lyrics, “Though I’m surrounded, I won’t be forsaken. God is my shield and praise is my weapon. In the face of impossible odds, I will say but God.”
That’s what I hear in David’s words in Psalm 56. God is for you! God will help you. God will somehow bring good from this in his timing and his way—for his glory. Because God is faithful, you will see him more clearly through this circumstance.
God is for you.
Everything that is hard finds its answer in those two words of hope…BUT GOD.