Remember the first time you buckled into a roller coaster or boarded an airplane? When you started your first job? Or when you lost a job? Remember when you found out you were going to have a child, or when you sent your child off to preschool or college? How about when the doctor told you that you had cancer or that someone you loved had passed?
From the cars we drive to the electricity in our homes, we plan our lives and go through our routines expecting everything will work. But not everything does. Not always. Things break down. Jobs end. Kids disobey and disappoint. So do parents. Relationships fail. Money runs out. Bodies break. People die.
Trust is a difference maker, especially in our relationships.
You can’t see it or touch it, but it’s obvious if it exists between two people. Trust will determine the success or failure of all our relationships—with our friends, spouses, children, and even with God.
It’s not supposed to be easy. We all have trouble trusting God completely with everything, all at once. But it begins with one choice, with taking God at His Word.
All our behaviors and attitudes will be governed by whether we trust God’s character.
And the truth of God’s trustworthy character is evident in every page of Scripture. We see evidence of this truth in the covenant promises God made to Abraham, Moses, and David and then kept. We see it in His faithfulness to provide for the Israelites during their wilderness wanderings—going before them in a pillar of fire by night and cloud by day, resting amid their presence in the tabernacle, providing them manna to eat.
And there was one thing God did that outshines every other example of His trustworthy nature. God was faithful to the promise He made to Adam and Eve by crushing the head of the serpent as He sent His own Son to earth to die the death we should have died. Jesus reigns victorious over sin and death.
This is why the psalmist could truthfully declare in Psalm 111:7, “All he does is just and good and all his commandments are trustworthy.”
The Hebrew word for trustworthy in this verse comes from the root word אמן (á·mân) and encapsulates loyalty and faithfulness. It tells of dependability, all characteristics that are true and evident in God. In one sentence the psalmist declared that all of God’s works are faithful and filled with justice; therefore, He is trustworthy.
This is how we stop resisting God’s ways. This is where we start finding a more grounded faith, renovated hearts, and a strengthened trust in God like never before. We look to His Word for the truth of His faithfulness. Because when we remember His faithfulness, we come to believe that because God is faithful, He can be trusted.
Life is filled with disappointments. And during those times of disappointment, the enemy sows seeds of distrust with thoughts of mistrust. Disappointment and discouragement become the breeding ground for Satan’s lies to take root.
Can you imagine how the disciples felt as the stone rolled in front of Jesus’ tomb? How could this happen? Where is God? But three days later when Jesus rose from the grave, they knew the answer: God had a greater plan.
No matter what you’re going through today, know this: God cares, God is in control, and you can trust Him.
“Blessed are those who trust in the LORD and have made the Lord their hope and confidence. They are like trees planted along a riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water. Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought. Their leaves stay green, and they never stop producing fruit.” - Jeremiah 17:7-8