To rely on them.
To place hope in them.
To follow them.
To believe their opinions.
To let them take care of you.
All of these are ways that we demonstrate and manifest our trust. Trust is a complex concept that seems so simple. Trusting someone means that we shouldn't have to worry, that our backs are covered and our burdens are relieved. It seems like everyone should have a person to trust, but it isn't always that simple. More often than not, trust is taken for granted and in the end, it is shattered, leaving us broken.
The reality of trust has resulted in me torturing myself with two questions.
The first is "Who do I trust?"
My answer, as I know it is for most of us, bases itself in others: family, friends, mentors.
For some of us, we place our trust in our jobs or our schooling, our knowledge or our money. Sometimes we're so afraid of getting hurt by the world that we place our trust in ourselves to avoid its destruction.
Our trust can't be broken of we're the only ones that possess it, we think.
This may seem true, but when we keep our trust to ourselves for long periods of time without letting anyone in, we end up believing that no one will ever deserve our trust, and as a result, our lives are lonely.
Why does it have to be so difficult?
The second question I ponder is: Who should I trust?
As Christians we all 'know' the answer. Some of us have heard it every Sunday from the time we were toddlers in the nursery. Some of us have heard it at camps, from our parents or even read it for ourselves in scriptures. Yes, God's word is pure and He is a shield to those who trust Him, but simply knowing this isn't enough...we need to believe it, and we need to act on it.
Reading a recipe doesn't bake you chocolate chip cookies. You have to pull out the ingredients and follow the recipe in order to get the promised results. It's no different with God.
We, as Christians, are professionals at knowing. We can read the Bible and quote scripture, we can go to church every Sunday and we can win countless quiz nights, but when it comes down to it, are we really acting on the recipe? Do we really advance the Kingdom of God? Do we really trust Him? We all know we should, just like we know we should mix dry ingredients and wet ones separately, but whether or not we put our knowledge into action is a different story.
The Bible promises us that God will always look after us, and that we can place our trust in him no matter what, but reading that over and over again won't draw us closer to Him. We need to take action. We need to step off the edges of our cliffs in leaps of faith, and pursue relationship with God to see what incredible things he has in store for us.
It's terrifying and difficult, but we need to fight through the struggle of trusting God because unlike worldly things, He will never fail us. He's got our backs. He will relieve us of our burdens and look after us for eternity if we ask him to.
All we need to do is act on that recipe.
Some trust in chariots and some trust in horses, but we put our trust in the name of the Lord.
~Psalm 20:7
