Trust – It’s Mostly About Me By Rhonda Wise

Trust, a word that I keep coming across a lot in my life lately. I don’t know about you, but when a word seems to reoccur in my life over a period of time, I finally ask myself and God, “Ok, what about this word am I supposed to learn?”

I know that trust is a big deal for a lot of people.  In The Journey Training, it’s a big focus of the Threshold weekend.  I used to consider myself a pretty trusting individual until I was recently forced to take a deeper look at what this word really means and how it affects the way I live my life.

When I ponder the idea of trust, I used to think that who I did or did not trust was based on the other person and how they treated me. If someone consistently lied to me or was always late for meetings with me or seemed to break promises, I tended to not trust them, or at least trust them less (is that really a thing?).  However, I’ve recently been challenged to reevaluate my view of trust, especially when it comes to God, His kids, and those I call my closest friends.

Proverbs 3:5-6 from the Message Bible says, “Trust God from the bottom of your heart; don’t try to figure everything out on your own. Listen for God’s voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; he’s the one who will keep you on track.  Don’t assume that you know it all.”  Most of us who profess to be Christians have heard this passage several times.  However, do you know what it really means?  Do you find it easy to fully trust God from the bottom of your heart, with everything you have?  I know, for me, fully trusting God is a hard concept to grasp; and it has nothing to do with God but everything to do with me.

Due to some health issues lately, my vulnerability and trust levels have increased greatly.  I thought I was trusting before, but when things got downright hopeless, I realized I was closing myself off to God and those who genuinely cared about me because I didn’t want to be hurt worse, or seen as weak and unable to handle life.  Everywhere I went I saw the word TRUST staring me in the face.  It was in my daily devotions; it was in the sermons at church; it was glaring at me when volunteering at The Journey Training weekends. Everywhere I looked, trust surrounded me but I still wasn’t getting it.

So, I began to ask God and also talk to some of the people around me. Trust is a choice and in order to live out my purpose I wanted/needed to figure this out.  Trust, to me, means that I am willing to be so authentic with you (or God or whoever), that I recognize the possibility of getting hurt and still choose to do so in order to receive the benefits of the relationship.  Trusting God means I choose to believe that He has my best interest at heart and admitting that I can’t do it all by myself and His ways are better.  Trusting God means, no matter what I’m feeling or what I’m seeing, I’m still open enough to share my feelings with Him and choose to believe that He is listening.

How does this translate into other relationships?  Well, I’ve come to find that if people say they care and want to help you, then you should be real and vulnerable enough to give them a chance.  I am a human, and no matter how much I would love to believe that I am all of the super heroes rolled into one (you know, the GREATEST person ever!), I have weaknesses and limitations.  God created me (and you) to be connected with others in relationship for a reason.  We can’t do life all alone, but all together, we can handle just about anything with His help.

So, in this season of life that I find myself, I am choosing to trust on a whole new level.  This choice of mine has begun to make a huge difference in my life.  By being real and vulnerable with those who are around me, I have shown that I’m willing to trust God and others with things that I cannot do on my own.  Because of this decision, it is opening doors and resources that God had waiting all the time.  He was inviting me to trust Him and others in a new way so that He could show me how trustworthy He is and they are.

How does trust or the lack of trust affect your life?  Have you ever stopped to think about it?  If you’ve been through The Journey Training, you learned a little about trust and that it is a choice. If you haven’t been through the training, I challenge you to look at trust in your own life and them maybe check out The Journey Training as a way to gain more information.