Gift number four is a growth in trust. This may seem a paradox that the failure you’re experiencing will grow your trust in Gods goodness. The biggest gifts are often those that are most deeply hidden, the ones we have to work for and so appreciate the most.
What is trust?
Definition – firm belief in the reliability, truth, or ability of someone or something.
For our purposes it is a firm belief in the reliability, truth and ability of God. This is different from the belief that God is, that is faith. Trust goes beyond believing that God exists into believing in his promises, His reliability and His goodness. Rather it is confidence in who He is rather than belief in that He is. You can see that trust and faith go hand in hand, each strengthens the other. Faith is a conviction of something unproven; if it’s proven then it doesn’t require faith to believe it. Trust is perhaps walking in that unproven conviction. As a theological virtue trust comes in under the “hope” banner, not in the way of wishful thinking but of fixing our anchor onto Christs promises[i], those made to us of eternal life, of His faithfulness and love of us. What are some of the promises of God that we are asked to trust in? Here are some examples, it may be helpful to read through them in a time of prayer, there will again be a little poke or nudge where you maybe lack trust. Bring that prompt to God; offer it to him as a place you’d like to grow.
Psalm 145:9 “The Lord is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made.
Psalm 100:5 For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.
2 Samuel 7:28 Sovereign Lord, you are God! Your covenant is trustworthy, and you have promised these good things to your servant.
Psalm 19:7 The law of the Lord is perfect, refreshing the soul. The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy, making wise the simple.
Nahum 1:7 The Lord is good, a refuge in times of trouble. He cares for those who trust in him.
Why do we need to trust in God?
The first answer is because He asks us to. Simple. He doesn’t ask us to so he can laugh as we fall flat on our face, He asks us to so we don’t fall flat on our face, and if we do it’s because we needed that fall for a bigger benefit, like our salvation or to avoid an even bigger crash. In these instances we are asked to trust this was for our goodness and His Glory (remember that?) Secondly, when we trust in anything other than God, well things are not going to go according to His plan. His plan is always, without fail going to be better than our plan because He sees the bigger picture. If we have taken each thought captive and surrendered every intention to Him, we allow the all-seeing God to take the driver’s seat.
The amount we trust is the amount to which He can lead us. The more He leads us the easier it becomes to trust in His promises, and around we go. He is a sure foundation; we can only experience the fullness of that by standing on the rock with both feet. We can keep attempting to balance one foot on, one foot off but we will fail to stand securely because we have only placed half of ourselves on the security of God.
The Third answer is because there will be times when big things depend upon a small yes from us. We need to be able to trust that God has our backs, that it’s his hand we are holding when we step out. He gives us the grace for these times, so we have all we need, but trust is working with the grace. Trust is knowing He is beside me.
How can I trust God?
We can’t fully trust someone we don’t know or have never met. I would not place my child into the care of a total stranger, neither would I trust them with the eternity of my soul. The only way we can trust in Him is to come to know him, through prayer. That prayer may come in many different ways but unless we sit, and listen, and speak to Him we will never know His desires for us.
We will forge our own paths and blame him whenever things fail. I have heard countless people blaming God for the disasters in their lives when they have never once given him a day of it. “Why would God allow that to happen?” is the cry of many a soul that have neither sought him nor turned to Him. Yet assume that every bad decision was the fault of the God who never existed in the sunnier days. That is not the situation we are covering predominantly here though, when we have spent time coming to know the Lord, we know when the skies turn dark that there is a reason, we grow in trust and in faith and Hope. It is an ever evolving journey of experience and trial, each we get brought through until the time when we don’t question his goodness even in the suffering and struggles we face.
How can we trust Him? We keep putting one foot in front of the other, each time he proves to us his faithfulness, each time he unfailingly provides we build a memory bank to fall back on when things are not so wonderful. He will not take us to where he can no longer reach us since he created all things. Even in deepest sin and denial He can throw in thunderbolts of extraordinary grace to turn our heads to face Him. There are more examples of heroic trust in God in scripture than we can begin to uncover in one chapter of a book, but the obvious star of the trust show is Abraham.
Abraham, star of the trust show
God leads Abraham on a long journey of trust, some of this journey Abraham kicks into the back of the “spiritual” net and other times he fails big time. Still God remains true to His promises. Firstly Abram is told by God to leave his father’s house and move to Canaan. God promises him a great nation that he’ll be blessed and anyone who curses him will be cursed, a big bag of incentives that outweigh the doubt that may well have been rising in his mind. He’s sure its God, he is not sure how God is going to make this come about but its appealing and worth the risk. His tribe leave the rest of the family behind but all their wealth comes with them.
Trust points 1 Fails 0
Abram soon reaches his second trial, a short spell in Egypt due to a famine in Canaan. Does Abraham trust God will protect him here, at the first sign of trouble? No, he thinks God couldn’t possibly provide in a famine and heads off course for Egypt, he thinks his pretty wife will get him killed and throws Sarai under the ‘sacrifice bus’ in a heartbeat. He tells her to pretend to be his sister. Pharaoh gives Abram lots of gifts (including slaves, we will come to that) for the pretty Sarai until God has to intervene, after a plague Pharaoh discovers the lie that Abram has told to protect himself. They are commanded to leave Egypt.
Trust points 1 Fails 2.
They leave Egypt with a lot of possessions, herds and tents, many ill-gotten gains from the land of Sin, so much so that there begins a quarrel between Abrams people and the people of his nephew Lot. The two men have to part company and there is division. This is a result of the first case of mistrust. There was plenty of space for all the first time they crossed this land. Lot goes off towards Sodom and Gomorrah, there’s much compromising going on in those parts and his story doesn’t end well.
Trust points 1 Fails 3
God tells Abram to look around, “I’m going to give you and your offspring all you can see, I will make your offspring like the dust, if anyone could count the dust then your offspring could be counted[ii]”. What a blessing and what a promise. Abram is still a bit doubtful that God is going to deliver this promise but God reassures him “Look up and count the stars in the sky, if you can. Just so, He added will your descendants be” God makes a covenant with Him in a vision and Abram put his faith in the Lord.
Trust points 2 Fails 3
After ten years still no sign of children for Sarai and Abram. Was God going to break his promise? Well Abraham and Sarai thought so. So with Sarai’s agreement Abram has a child with Hagar, a slave girl gifted to them through the lies to Pharaoh. This was not Gods plan, and from this lack of trust many more problems arise. Jealousy and disharmony run rife.
Trust points 2 Fails 4.
So when Abram was 99 years old, God appeared to him. God says I will be your God, change your names to Abraham and Sarah and we are going to set your people apart by Circumcision. God tells him Sarah will bear him a son. Abraham laughs, but not as much as Sarah.
Trust Points 2 Fails 5
Abraham once again is in trouble and lies about Sarah being his wife to Abimelech, God intervenes again and the lie is uncovered. God however still continues to Bless Abraham
Trust points 2 Fails 6
Isaac is born and the tension between Sarah and Isaac and Hagar and her son Ishmael gets to boiling point, Hagar leaves and God, true to his word cares for them. Then God really tests Abrahams trust, God asks him to take Isaac up to a mountain and sacrifice the child he has waited all these years for. Abraham follows obediently, by all of these small trials Abraham has learnt that God is faithful even when he isn’t. The altar is built and Isaac is laid upon it. As Abraham raises the knife to sacrifice his son an angel calls to him “Abraham, Abraham, don’t lay your hand on the boy” In this one act of trust and obedience Abraham has overcome all the past fails, The lords patience with him as he has grown is now rewarded. He has trusted that God, who has promised him many descendants, will still fulfil His word, even if he has asked him to kill his son. Abraham has learnt to fully trust in God.
How does failure build trust?
Trust and Faith are both gifts from God, freely given graces which we have to respond to. In a time of failure we are given a glimpse into just what portion of each we have been blessed with, oh and yes, how much more we are in need of. There is no greater measure of trust than that of trial. It is easy to trust in Gods goodness when all in life is sweet and easy going. It requires little of us to believe in His reliability and promises when every effort is richly rewarded and going to plan but what about when they don’t? Is he still your God? Are you still going to be faithful to a God that doesn’t make life a smooth ride into eternity? This is your opportunity to show your love for God, its ok He’s patient if you don’t get it right first, second, third or fourth time. Perhaps this big failure is your Abraham moment of faith and trust? If you are feeling that you weren’t stopped in time to prevent the sacrifice then you are being asked to trust that God will be bringing about something bigger than that which had to die. Something that couldn’t live without that sacrifice, that might be something external or of more importance, something internal. Take some time to think what that might be, take it to Him in prayer, just like He did with Abraham he will keep giving you all you need to continue to grow, to continue to trust in his mercy, love and desire for good for you. In each failure on our part, the Lord remains faithful, the more we fail the more we learn just how far that faithfulness goes, and just how worthy He is of our trust.
Still struggling to trust God?
There are many reasons why we may be struggling to trust God and our current situation of failure might be one of them. But the truth is we can trust Him. He is good. He is loving. So the problem has to lie elsewhere, with us. Perhaps we have a problem trusting anyone or past wounds are colouring how we are perceiving God to be, not in fact allowing us to see how he really is. Let him lead you, there is nothing he wants more than to be known by you. Keep praying, keep the conversation going. As soon as Abraham brought his doubts to the light God was able to lift him up and do incredible things.
Romans 8:28 “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”