Worrying the Days Away Day 3: Trust Issues
So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
(John 8:31-32, ESV)
Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord, and turn away from evil. It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones. (Proverbs 3:5-8, ESV)
Everyone has trust issues. Whether it is a lack of trust or incorrectly placed trust, we all struggle with trust issues. Once again, I think this goes back to the Garden. When Eve made the choice to remove her trust in God and place it in the words of the serpent, she made a critical error. Eve’s misplaced trust brought sin into the world and the trusting relationship with God was broken. We are still suffering the consequences of that broken relationship today. Our trust is often misplaced, whether it be in people, things, or self—and for many of us our trust has been broken from a very young age.
Typically, when we think of trust issues, we think of people who have been in failed relationships or who grew up in homes with a parent who was abusive or who abandoned them. For some, the parent they trusted chose to walk out on them at an early age. This fractures a child’s ability to trust and can leave them permanently scarred. For others, they are scarred by an abusive relationship or a cheating spouse, causing them to lose faith in people. While it may not seem obvious, I believe we have all had a pivotal moment where our ability to trust others was crippled. It may be a big moment that is permanently seared into your mind or it may be a small memory lost in time. The critical error of putting our trust in humans is just that: they are human. As humans we have a proclivity to fail, to lie, to cheat, to sin. While we must put our faith in people to some extent (friends, spouses, bosses, parents), they are not the ones on whom our foundation of trust should be set.
For me, there is one person I rarely trust. Spoiler alert—it’s me! I have a massive lack of trust in myself. While I would love to trust my gut, I tend to doubt its ability to tell me the truth. However, our gut does tell us the truth sometimes. Have you ever gotten a funny feeling when you see a man following you down a store aisle? That is your gut telling you to be alert and on your guard. Sometimes our gut gives us warnings about people, places, or things. The difficulty with putting faith in gut feelings is that we can be swayed by inaccurate information. Maybe you had a friend once who talked unkindly behind your back, and when you meet a new person who speaks like them your gut says they are not a trustworthy person. You may not consciously link these things, but the wires in your brain have gotten crossed and are sending misguided signals. Once again, when we place all our faith in ourselves or our gut feelings, we are placing trust in a human, and as we’ve discussed, that is destined for failure.
Ultimately, our faith must be placed in God. He alone is trustworthy. When we choose to put our faith in God first, we will have a closer connection to the truth. His Spirit will guide us in our decisions and give us great discernment. The prescription for trust issues is a good, trusting relationship with God. My challenge for you today is to identify where your trust lies. Are you putting your trust in others or yourself rather than in God? Repent before God for your lack of faith, and remind yourself that God alone is trustworthy. He is the one on whom your faith should remain, and through Him you will find the truth.
