Can God be Trusted?

The Bible tells us in Proverbs 3:5 to trust in the Lord with all our hearts and lean not on our understanding. It continues by encouraging us to acknowledge him in all our ways, he will direct our path. Does God remain trustworthy when our worse fears become reality or our dreams get dashed and our plans thwarted? Can we trust Him when the painful situation is our fault? Life difficulties may lead us to doubt His ability and desire to help us.

The first reason we distrust God is we do not know him. Like in any other relationship, we tend to be wary of people we don’t know well, people we have no history with limited interactions. The same skepticism plays out in our relationship with God because we treat him like the people around us. We need to understand what he says in his word in Numbers 23:19 He (God) is not a man to lie nor the son of man that he should change his mind. Be assured that God never lies whatsoever he says is what he is. His character never changes, and we have reasons to trust him even more.

The second reason we distrust God is that we mistrust others. We often take the distrust with others and blame it on Him. We think that if we trust this person and they betray us, God is also the same. Psalm 103:8 reminds us of God’s supernatural character: compassionate, gracious, loving, and forgiving us to perfection. When we wrap our brains and hearts around God’s goodness, we realize he can be trusted.

The third reason is we misunderstand God, we allow our limited knowledge of him to rub elbows with our distrust of others, and we can arrive at a warped understanding of who God is. We come to believe what others say about God. We look to those who say they believe in him and think that this is not a God I want to trust or follow. Psalm 145:13 the Lord is trustworthy in all His promises and faithful in all He does. If we are willing to do the work to get to know God better, according to His definitions and integrity, we discover that He is trustworthy and faithful without fail.

Trusting the Lord does not always mean we will understand what he is doing or why he is doing it. We are just required to stand on his word, irrespective of whatever situation we find ourselves in. We are not to trust him for things but to trust him in all things. Trusting in the Lord is not inherited but learned. When we put out trust in him, we don’t have to scheme to get a husband, we don’t have to backstab to get prompted, we don’t need to plot to get ahead we rest assured that all is in God’s control.