Why Is It So Hard to Trust God?

The gospel is such a simple thing that we cannot really grasp it without the intervention of the Holy Spirit. The simplicity of the gospel is that we have to trust God and trust that He has a provided a way through Jesus Christ for us to spend an eternity with Him in heaven. We have to trust it so much that we don’t try any other ways to do it ourselves. We do good works because we love him and we have His heart and His Spirit lives in us, not because we are trying to earn our way to heaven. If you are not a Christian, the Bible says that this is all foolishness to you. Therefore, if think you are a Christian but you think this is foolish you should re-evaluate your relationship with Christ. The people that I know that call themselves Christian that have the spiritual fruit that matches their testimony completely get this.

So why is it that we can trust God with the most valuable thing to us (our soul for eternity), yet we find it so hard to trust Him in the small mundane things of this world? Through this adoption I have often pondered this question as Julie and I oscillate back and forth between total trust in God for these adoptions and thinking of ways to try to solve the problems on our own. God has clearly told us to ask people to pray, but not tell them specifically what to pray about – not even when they ask us. I don’t know all of the reasons that God has told us this, but every day it becomes clearer that one of the reasons is that we simply have not learned this simple truth yet – we CAN trust God for EVERYTHING.

I don’t know about you, but I think the reason there is a difference is that I know my eternal security is based solely on God and is not in any way dependent on anybody (including myself). However, in this world, God chooses to work through people and people often fail us even though God never does. As I think about how many times God has asked me to do something specific and I have absolutely refused or maybe intended to but never got around to it, I begin to wonder what if the people that God intends to use to overcome our obstacles are like me? What if they intend to pray for us but don’t? What if they pray, but have no intention of being used by God as the answer to those prayers? What if they pray and are used by God, but only participate in a token way instead of sacrificially? I ponder these questions in my spirit because I know how many times I have failed in these same ways.

Just last night we went through the remaining steps and what has to happen to complete the adoptions and I was totally overwhelmed as the obstacles were closer and bigger than I have ever seen them. My flesh immediately started brainstorming ways to overcome the obstacles and I began to get stressed out over it all. After some prayer, God calmed my spirit and reassured me AGAIN that He is in control and His timing is perfect. Yes, God works through people and people are not always obedient, but God has an infinite number of people He can work through and He will accomplish what He wants to accomplish and those who are not obedient to Him (like me so many times in my life) will simply miss out on the blessings God has for them. Julie and I both have found that we are praying more for God to help our unbelief (as Thomas prayed) than we are for God to solve our problems. God really is using this to mold and make us to be more like Him and that is ultimately what He wants for all of us.

Ben