Growing in Trust...

I know that God wants me to trust Him.

And I know that He's not going to just make my heart start trusting Him on its own...

He's going to provide me with opportunities to trust Him.

It would be so much easier if He would just snap His fingers or bat His eyes or breathe on me to make me trust Him...

But then it wouldn't mean anything to me.

And that's not how God wants it. He wants my trust in Him to count for something.

So, He's giving me a lot of opportunities to place my trust in Him.

Oh, I say that I trust Him, but do I really mean it?

Webster defines trust as, 

"a : assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something

 b : one in which confidence is placed" 

And "assured" means "guaranteed"

And "reliance" means "dependent"

If I place my confidence in God, I don't need to second guess Him. I don't need to spend all of my time worrying about how things are going to happen. 

Sometimes I try to make things happen on my own. And it ends up in a mess. I feel like I'm getting in God's way. 

And sometimes I get frustrated when things don't happen the way that I think that they should. 

Neither one of these are signs of trust. 

If I say that I trust Lee, I don't need to second guess him all of the time. It would drive me crazy if he second guessed me all of the time. No fun there. 

But it can be fun to trust in God. 

He said a few things that I can hold on to...Promises that He won't break:

1) He said He would never leave me or forsake me. (Deuteronomy 31:6)

2) He said if I seek His Kingdom first, then everything else will be taken care of. (Matthew 6:33)

3) He said that I can cast all of my cares on Him because He cares for me. (1 Peter 5:7)

If God is challenging you to grow in an area on your spiritual journey, He's not just going to let you grow in it without presenting you and opportunity to grow. 

Yes, I've failed at trusting God before. 

Yes, sometimes it seems way harder to trust God than others. 

No, I do not want to give up and never trust God again.

Although I've failed Him, He's never failed me. And He's even made beautiful things out of messy circumstances I've created for myself. 

And it doesn't mean that I need to sit back and wait without doing anything...I can move forward in life knowing that I trust that God is doing something bigger than what I can see. I need to be moving along with Him...just doing my best to let Him be God. He's going to take good care of me.