How easily do you trust? Is your starting point to trust people until they prove they are untrustworthy? Or is your starting point to be skeptical until someone proves they are trustworthy? Have you done something that sounded crazy because your trusted the person who told you to do it?
Trust can be tricky. We even have a saying, “Trust must be earned.” Yet, most of us grow up trusting our parents. As small children, we have an inherit trust of our parents. As we grow and experience being around others, we discover there are some we can trust and others we cannot.
Where does this leave us when it comes to trusting God? It can be challenging to trust someone you cannot see and interact with in the flesh. Yet, we can experience God and learn to trust him just as we learn to trust people. We are not to test God. However, we are to make requests of him. And just like our parents, sometimes God’s answer is no or not now. But as we experience him granting our requests, our trust in him grows.
The Israelites had to put their trust in God to rescue them. He honored their trust by leading them out of Egypt, parting the Red Sea so they could cross before the Egyptian soldiers caught up to them. They trusted the walls of Jericho would fall as they marched around them for seven days. Though there may have been some who weren’t convinced God would come through, the majority followed God’s direction, perhaps dragging the others along with them.
Trusting God is one of two pieces to our faith. We must first believe in God. Once we believe he exists and he is who he says he is, we add our trust in him to make up our faith. As our trust in him grows, our faith grows. We build our trust by experiencing his love, grace, mercy, and blessings. God has taken the first step. We must take the next step.
I pray we all believe in God. I pray we learn to trust God through our experiences with him. I pray each one of us build our faith in God by making requests and seeing him answer them. Believe in God. Trust God. Build your faith. Experience God’s love, grace, mercy, and blessings.
Hebrews 11:29-30 By faith the people passed through the Red Sea as if it were dry land, but when the Egyptians attempted to do so they were drowned. By faith the walls of Jericho fell after they had been encircled for seven days.
Marty Pressey 