Learning Trust
Psalm 9:10 Those who know the Lord trust Him, because He will not leave those who come to Him.
Psalm 31:14 But as for me, I trust in You, O Lord, I say “You are my God.”
Proverbs 3:7 Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths.
Micah 7:5 Do not trust in a friend; do not put your confidence in a companion; guard the doors of your mouth from her who lies in your bosom.
Do you have trust issues? Many people do. I think it might be a learned behavior, but perhaps not. If people have broken promises (sometimes through no fault of their own), you begin to see and learn that life is not always guaranteed in the manner you expect and have planned for. Perhaps you had a promise to go to Disneyworld with your grandparents in two months, but suddenly one or the other of them pass away, the plans are then shelved. Even if the trip still happened, it would not be as you imagined and planned on since one of those special folks is no longer living.
Certainly, you can get a promise that you can go to the store in a while. But you’re out playing and your mother takes off and goes without you. It is probably an innocent oversight to her, but a broken promise and a disappointment to you. We try hard to keep our word, but it can be forgotten in the midst of a crisis, just a busy day, and we may not think that the plan was very important when it was agreed to, so should not be a big deal when plans change.
But it can be. Innocent changes of plans can be a breach in trust, and overtime and frequency, all trust and reassurance can be damaged. It is not that someone means to cause you to mistrust and not depend on them, but things happen.
I remember being a single parent, waiting and waiting for my ex-spouse to come to collect our son for a weekend visit. But not coming. My son was not disappointed, but relieved, but still it was ordered that we be prepared for the visit, but no phone call, and no pick up. And how long are you supposed to wait? We once waited 90 minutes past the scheduled time, then left to carry on our day. My son’s father called irate two hours and twenty minutes after the agreed on time. Then it would be a phone call the middle of the following week for him to visit. No, that is my weekend to work and he is then with the sitter, and I am not inconveniencing the sitter because you forgot your weekend. For a while it was difficult; I had already learned about mistrust in many areas of that relationship, but I did not like the fact my son had to learn these things at a young age.
It’s hurtful to realize the amount of times trust is broken expecially for children. These sweet ones may have awful persons in their lives who abuse them (in any manner) and suspicion and distrust grow. If they cannot be supported and protected, their sense distrust goes to others because they may not have te words to express reasons for mistrust, or fear, or because they believe they are wrong, or the cause and just grows for them like a consuming fire.
I have attended a couple of build trust and team things, and never was totally confident that the person would catch me when I fell backwards. I doubted if a new person would call when they said they would—until they followed through. I had learned to hold some mistrust. Sometimes folks don’t follow through, and it hurts less, is less of a disappointment if you hope they will come through, but you doubt it, and then it’s a pleasure when it happens!
But God is not like that. He does what He says. But it was a learning walk for me to get to the point of fully trusting. It was easy for me to believe in God, the trinity, and that Jesus was the Son and He died. It was more of a stretch for me to believe He died for me. It was trust issues that made that harder for me. I read, I studied, yet I doubted. He saved a wretch like me?
So, sometimes, I think it is difficult to hand over all to God. We have to learn to trust Him, and that can be difficult especially if we are normally thinking we are in control. We do the best we can, but we are not in control. Always, God is in control.
We need to be childlike again, full of trust, and give it over to Him; our lives, our problems, our issues, our needs, and all, everything. It can be tough when it is hard for you to trust. It’s a process and one I continue to advance. But I now have the confidence that He has me, and I can trust Him. And that takes a lot of the burden off me. Do you trust Him?
Thank You, Father, for building my trust in You, and advancing ‘mybellaviews.’
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