Designed to Trust

I believe there is a God. More specifically I believe that the God of the Bible is real and true.

One of the themes you keep coming across in the Bible is that of trust. Trust in God, trust in man, trust in money, etc. Trust.

What is trust? Trust is the outcome of believing something is true. If you trust that the money I gave you is real then you will use that money and not report me to the police. If you trust the GPS when it says, “Take a right and you will reach your destination” you will take a right turn.

Something I’ve learned about myself and which I believe is true for everyone is that we can’t know everything. I don’t know everything about myself, my family, my friends, the food I eat, the air I breathe, the language I speak, the things I do, the things I know, the things I don’t know, etc.

In such a situation, where I don’t know everything, how then can I operate? Not knowing can be uncomfortable. Realising that you don’t know is sobering. Yet we move on, yet we live our lives, daily, not knowing it all.

Not knowing, uncertainties, conjure up many images of what could be, what might be possible, what might happen. Some are happy thoughts, while others scary.

We trust that the toaster will toast the bread today the same way it toasted the bread yesterday. We trust that the road we took to work will take us to work again. We trust that when we come back home we will see our family again. We trust that we will be able to solve a problem if we think about it and look for a solution.

Life is a lot of trusting.

Could we trust if the toaster behaved differently everyday? Could we trust if the toaster spontaneously could stop existing and exit our thoughts and imaginations? Could we trust if the road took you to a new place every time you used it?

Trust seems to be built upon familiarity and an unchanging-ness. It seems to me that it is rather difficult to trust in something or someone if it is fluid.

And so, I go back to my initial statement. I believe in the God of the Bible. The Bible describes God in many ways and one such description is “Rock”. The idea is of a rock in the middle of a raging ocean, in a thunderstorm, that doesn’t budge and is unbothered. It stands and stays the same through heat and cold, night and day, season after season, year after year. The same yesterday, today, forever.

If God is real and I cannot trust Him then that’s a scary proposition. The Bible says that God doesn’t change. If that’s true then that’s great news. For instance it means if He says I can be forgiven of my sins then I can be rest assured that my sins can definitely be forgiven and rest easy.

If we can’t know everything and God made us that way, from my discussion above it would suggest that God intended for us to live our lives based on trust. I believe that, chiefly, God designed us so that we would live our lives trusting in Him. He gave us the faculties of our mind, our body, etc. but I believe He intends for us to use them while trusting in Him.

To trust Him would simply mean to take Him at His word and to wait on Him. Why should I love God? Because He said so. Why should I love my neighbour? Because He said so.

Suddenly life is not that complicated anymore; I don’t need to know or understand everything.

I simply need to know and find out what He wants me to do.