Redefining Trust

Trust is not something that you give... it is something that you do.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart.” (Prov. 3:5a)

 “What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee.” (Psalm 56:3)

 “Commit thy way unto the Lord, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass.” (Psalm 37:5)

You may find a great deal of comfort and command in these verses.  They reinforce our dependence, correctly placed, on the One who created the universe.  They speak about a deep relationship of the heart that places Him first, where He should be.

Misunderstood, they allow you to neglect responsibility.  At least, in the sense of what I have always understood trust to be.

That was, of course, until I was walking my dog one night, having a great conversation with the Man upstairs, when in my heart I came to understand trust in a new way. 

I make a regular practice of praying Proverbs 3:5 as a request, “Lord, Help me to… trust in You with all my heart, and to lean not to my own understanding.”  My disposition does not afford me the luxury of thinking that He does not speak anymore.  When we ask Him for help, He is more than willing and able to give it, even if what comes next is not exactly what we were hoping for.

If we are to follow effectively, trust is essential.  Therefore it is essential that we understand it.

You see, I like to think of trusting God as the same thing as “waiting on” Him.  As in, “I trust that God will take care of it.”  Or, “Don’t you trust that Jesus has a plan, His ways are above our ways, and He will complete his plan?”  True.  If only that were the case.

Do you see trust as a state of being or as a course of action?

Consider the following questions around trust.

What do you think trusting is? 

When have you used these verses to comfort yourself or others? 

What were the circumstances? 

And (here is the root-of-it question), what behavior were you supporting?

We need to take “trust” as a command, from the passive voice to where it belongs – in the active!

Trusting does not equal “not acting”!

Personally I was surprised to see that trusting could be interpreted “moving forward with confidence or security.”  Do you get that? Moving Forward.  It is a command of action, much like Peter stepping off the boat to walk on the water or the priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant into the raging Jordan. 

Restate the verse with its substitution:  “Move forward with confidence and security in the Lord with all your heart.”  Or “What time I am afraid, I will move forward with confidence and security in thee.”  What a difference!  Here I thought trusting got me off the hook, when in fact it places me right on it. 

As Christians, there is no part of our life that is separate.  We are Christians.  We are Followers of Christ.  Followers who are called to love the Lord our God, love others, work. 

We have been likened to trees, to wheat, and to branches.  Nothing we do, whether we called it spiritual, personal, or professional growth, happens apart from our relationship with Jesus Christ. 

If we are to grow we must allow Him to plant us by the water, place us in the fertile soil, and graft us into the Vine.  When we look at these examples we see that the potential for growth was always there, but the sustainable growth could not take place apart from the source of life.  While the water, the soil, and the Vine all contain the source, were the tree, the wheat, or the branch not to take in that sustenance, they would never grow.  Each of these were secure.  They were in places that could sustain their growth.  Be it by the water, or in the soil, or grafted into the Vine itself; they need not fear that the source of life and growth would run out.

So as you look to follow, you will need to trust.  You can move forward with confidence and security.  He can and will do for you what He has done and continues to do for others.  He is the source.  He is the sustenance.  In Him you can rest secure.

But you must DO.  You must be active.

Paul charges us to “press on for the prize”, and comments on his having “run the race.”  These are both descriptions of constant progress toward a goal, constant pursuing of an end result.

            We call it a Christian “walk” rather than a Christian “sit” or a “wait” for a reason.  We are passing through, on our way to our eternal home.  And so we must continue to move forward.  We must continue to press on.  We must continue.  We must trust.

We must look at trust as something that we decide to DO, not to give.  At times we need to actively move forward with those who have not earned it.  This may be hard.  But if we are to grow, if we are to be true followers, then we must continue to move forwad.

SDG,

MC