Having trouble with trust?

Do you ever have trouble with trusting God?  You and I are not alone.

Several years ago, Reuters reported the story of a London accountant who knew he needed bladder surgery, but didn’t trust the doctor or the hospital, so he attempted the surgery himself — with the anticipated consequence of his untimely death.  It would have been a simple procedure for a trained professional, but because of his self-reliant distrust of others, he ended up on the coroner’s table instead of the surgeon’s gurney.

Now most of us don’t take our distrust with others to such extremes.  But do we attempt similar acts of spiritual foolishness because we don’t trust God?

Do we allow our distrust of God to turn into anger (or its cousins, frustration, anxiety, and depression)?  In our failure to depend on God do we come up with our own plans and intentions to manipulate various circumstances to our own desired ends —  do we, like David, scheme and plot in a vain attempt to circumvent God’s intended purposes for us?  These are the spiritual equivalent of an accountant attempting self-surgery.

William Plummer well noted more than a century ago:  “Among all the redeemed in glory there is not one who looks back and sees that on earth there was any mistake in the divine conduct towards him.  God does all things well.”

When trial come — both large and small — wise is the one who unashamedly and contentedly trusts God.

When we fail to trust God we doubt His sovereignty and question His goodness.  In both cases we cast aspersions upon His majesty and His character.  God views our distrust of Him as seriously as He views our disobedience. [Jerry Bridges, Trusting God.]

How might you stimulate a deeper trust in God?  Bridges continues:

The faith to trust God in adversity comes through the Word of God alone.  It is only in the Scriptures that we find an adequate view of God’s relationship to and involvement in our painful circumstances.  It is only from the Scriptures, applied to our hearts by the Holy Spirit, that we receive the grace to trust God in adversity.