How do I trust God? How do I have hope again?
It’s hard for me to trust someone who says that they love me when they let terrible things happen…what can I do to trust God? How do I have hope again? What is the point of loving anyone when they just leave?
Response:
Without knowing your specific pain, my response may seem inadequate for you. I feel your questions deserve a closer and more in-depth look into what has prompted you to ask them, but in the spirit of this blog, I will respond in a more generic manner.
Trust is an incredible ally and friend when it is gained. But that’s the catch with trust – it has to be gained, it’s not an automatic reaction. You have to be willing to open yourself up and make yourself vulnerable for trust to begin to form between you and another. It does not work in a one-way manner; both parties must make themselves vulnerable. By the same token, trust can be easily broken. And because vulnerability has made you exposed, it makes the damaged trust so much more painful.
Past experiences with broken trust are very damaging to the promise of future trusting relationships. Those that have been burned by fire tend to step further away from it and avoid getting close to its flames. The problem there is that while you think you are protecting yourself from being burned again, you’re actually keeping yourself from being able to feel the warmth fire has to offer. If you avoid and “protect” yourself from its heat for too long, you’ll forget its comforting warmth, not to mention the many other life sustaining elements it provides. In order to feel that soothing warmth again, you have to be willing to make yourself vulnerable again. This can seem dangerous as you get closer to the fire, but when real trust is established, you’ll understand the true beauty held within the flames and you’ll never want to be found too far from its reach again.
One thing I can promise you is that God will NEVER just leave. In a trusting relationship with God, the only one that ever leaves and breaks that trust is us humans. He has promised several times that He will never leave (Deuteronomy 31:6, Joshua 1:5, 1 Kings 8:57,…), and He stands by that promise. What do you need to do to trust God? Make yourself vulnerable to Him. Open yourself up to His love. Allow yourself to get close to his warmth and let it engulf you completely.
