Is Your Trust in God Increasing?

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3 Questions to Assess the Strength of Your Trust

Recently a dear friend explained to me she had confidence in God but found it difficult to understand that God has always loved and given her the best. Generally, understanding God’s ways is a matter of trusting Him. His ways are higher than our ways and His thoughts are higher than our thoughts (Isaiah 55:8-0).

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Some time ago I encountered a situation that caused me to think about trust. Someone trusted me beyond anything I had ever experienced before. As I thanked God for the trust I received, He showed me something about my relationship with Him. And this lesson increased my confidence in God. By sharing what I learned in this situation, I hope to help you assess your own trust in God and provide steps to help you increase your trust and confidence in God.

The Situation

I had reviewed a document, which was a part of my responsibilities for an organization I served at the time. I found a number of significant risks in the document and recommended some changes to protect the organization. The person responsible for the document did not like my suggestions, but was not authorized to accept the risks.

After a number of discussions and emails it became clear the responsible person and I were not going to agree on the level of risk or the suggested changes. The responsible party began climbing the management levels through the organization to get someone to “correct” and overrule me. The first stop was to my direct superior who clearly had the authority to overrule me, but he did not. And he declined to do so without first reading the document or my suggested changes. This was the first level of trust shown me, and I appreciated it.

The responsible person then asked her direct superior to intervene. He did so by approaching my superior. Again, my superior supported my work without reading the document or my suggested changes. I was quite moved by this second level of trust!

Ultimately, the responsible person went to the head of the organization, which was two levels above my superior. Can you imagine what my superior did? You would expect that he would have read the document and my suggested changes to ensure I was on track before he discussed it with the head of the organization. Instead, he 100% supported me without ever having read the document or my suggested changes. He explained the changes were recommended because I believed they were important to protect the organization and would not have recommended them otherwise. This third level of trust blew me away!

My superior took a very strong stand at every level of the organization, including the top executive, without having read my work. He trusted me and my work enough to put his own reputation on the line without having read it. I was dumbfounded!

In my speechless amazement, I went to God thanking Him and asking why my superior would put himself on the line like that for what some would think a very inconsequential document. As I was praying, this is what the Lord showed me.

1. My superior and I had a lengthy relationship.
2. My work during that time had been of a consistent quality.
3. My superior was very familiar with my work and my character.

The Lesson

What do the lessons I learned from this situation tell us about our own relationship with God?

First, the longer we are in relationship with God, the more confident we should be in trusting Him.

Because of the long relationship between Israel and God, the fathers of Israel trusted God and David followed suit by trusting Him also (Psalm 22:3-5). David finished Psalm 22 with a song of praise while still in the midst of a battle and still needing deliverance. Why? Because David trusted God as his forefathers had and he knew God would deliver him.

If I were still in my first year working for the organization when the situation occurred, I doubt my superior would have taken such a strong stand without having first read the original document, my suggested changes, and my explanations of the risk. But, as we worked together over the years, my superior’s trust in me and my work had increased to the point he could stand boldly before the head of the organization and declare full confidence in my work without having ever read it.

Second, God is consistent with us in our relationship with Him.

As the composer of the hymn, Great is Thy Faithfulness, penned, “There is no shadow of turning with Thee.” God loves us with an everlasting love (Jeremiah 31:3). He remains the same yesterday, today and tomorrow (Revelation 1:8). God is consistent in His relationship with us.

And third, we are very familiar with God’s work and His character.

We are familiar with God’s work. In Psalm 23 David sets forth many of the works God does for us. In every aspect of our lives, He works consistently. He guides us, provides us places to rest, keeps us from evil even when we see evil all around us. He anoints us, preparing us for whatever He calls us to do.

Did you notice David also expressed trust in this Psalm?  We can trust God to do all of these things and we can trust in his goodness and mercy … forever!

We also know God’s character. As Jesus explained in John 10:7-18 and 25-28, He is the door for the sheep and the good shepherd who gives His life for the sheep. Because Jesus died for us, we are His sheep and we know Him. Further, we hear His voice and we follow Him. We are familiar with His character.

The lesson from this situation is our trust in the Lord grows more and more every day we walk with Him and see His consistent love, work (whether it be blessings or allowing challenges in our lives and working them so the result is good for us), and character.

Assessing Our Trust in God

How do we know that our trust in God is growing? The Apostle Paul tells us our trust in Him grows when we are filled with joy, peace, and hope (Romans 15:13). When we are filled with joy, peace, and hope we can be confident our trust in God is growing.

What if I am not feeling such joy, peace, and hope? Is there a problem? To answer that question, we will turn the situation around and look at it as an allegory in order to determine if God can trust us, just as Jesus used allegory when viewing the generosity of our earthly father to illustrate God’s generosity as heavenly “Father” (Matthew 7:11) and David used allegory to symbolize God as a Shepherd (Psalms 23).

In this allegory my superior represents God. God is the authority over me, just as my superior was when I was working for the organization. Can God trust us? Although scripture doesn’t directly speak to that question, we are supposed to live Christ-like. We are to be godly. So, if God is worthy of our trust, we are to live worthy of His trust (Ephesians 4:1).

Let’s look at the three conditions that caused my superior to trust me. We have already used them to determine we can trust God. We will now apply them to how God views us to determine if we are living trustworthy.

First, do you have a long relationship with God, one that is not built on fragments of time (the roller coaster relationship) but on a significant length of time without interruption?

The writer of Hebrews tells us to “run with patience the race that is set before us” (Hebrews 12:1). That race is not a sprint, but a marathon. We can run it with patience, establishing a long relationship with God, by keeping our eyes on Jesus and trusting Him to complete our faith (Hebrews 12:2). We keep our eyes on Jesus by yearning for His presence as if it is a necessity and seeking Him through the power of His Word (Psalms 27:8 AMP).

Second, are you consistent with Him in your relationship? Do we love Him consistently?

When we walk in the fear of the Lord, serving Him with all our hearts and all of our souls we will walk consistently with Him, loving Him consistently (Deuteronomy 10:12).

And third, is God familiar with your work and character?

According to Jesus, the work we are to do is that which endures forever (John 6:27). Jesus explained, “This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom He hath sent” (John 6:29). What work should God see in us? Our belief in Jesus, our faith. According to James, we demonstrate our faith through the works we do (James 2:18). Are you living your faith by works so that God is familiar with your works?

What about your character? Your character is demonstrated by your walk with God. Remember Deuteronomy 10:12. Do you fear the Lord, walking in all of His ways, serving Him with all your heart and soul?

Steps to Increasing Your Trust and Confidence in God

If I look at my life and find that my trust in God is not growing as evidenced by the lack of joy, peace, and hope, then I need to consider where I am putting my faith and what I am paying attention to.

If you do not have a long, consistent walk with God behind you, don’t feel bad. We all started on one particular day with a salvation experience. Take this lesson as instruction for how to walk with Him consistently. You will face trials that will challenge your trust in God. And, on occasion, you will question Him. In these situations, keep your eyes on Him, not on your circumstance, and you will be able to run a consistent race and see your trust in God grow day by day, as evidenced by increasing joy, peace, and hope in your life. Remember, you keep your eyes on Jesus by yearning for His presence as if it is an absolute necessity in your life and seeking Him through the power of His Word (Psalms 27:8 AMP).

If you have been walking with God for a long time but don’t see your trust in God growing, then ask yourself if you are walking in His ways consistently, with your eyes on Jesus. You may find that your eyes have been drawn to other things, such as relationships, career, hobbies. Or possibly your feet have been knocked out from under you in some catastrophic event and you have focused on the event, instead of on Jesus. That happens at one time or another to most people. If that is where you find yourself, then turn to God with your whole heart, remembering that He is trustworthy and is still walking with you. Set your eyes on Jesus.

If we are not experiencing increasing joy, peace, and hope in our lives, then we need to turn our eyes to Jesus. He is always in focus when we walk consistently in the fear of the Lord, serve Him with all of our hearts and souls, and demonstrate our faith by our works. His consistent love and character, which has lasted through all generations and will continue through all eternity, will be with us always. We will feel increasing amounts of joy, peace, and hope. And we will be able to trust that He is working all things out for our good (Romans 8:28).

God is holy, righteous, and worthy of our trust. Focusing on Him and His faithfulness will cause our trust in Him to grow every day, even when life gets difficult. As our trust and confidence in God grows, we will feel more joy, peace, and hope.

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