Elemental Season 1 - Day 12

Trust is hard. It is difficult for us to trust one another, to trust institutions, to trust our spouses even. 

When I do premarital counseling with a couple we talk about intention and how they need to always trust the intention of their partner. While their partner may do something terribly painful to them, if they trust the intent of the other person who made the mistake, they will get through it. Just because we make mistakes, make wrong assumptions, or struggle with the other person doesn’t mean that we are no longer in a relationship with them. In fact, during those times it is possible for love to grow stronger, for understanding to grow deeper, and for us to believe in the other person even more profoundly. 

We have to trust in that partner even when we may not feel like it. When we do this with God we are beginning to experience the true idea of trust. Faith in God is not predicated on how we answer questions, but on what we do when we don’t have answers to those questions. Faith is not about knowing, rather, it is about trusting. Trusting God in the midst of our doubt, our confusion, or just our questions. It is about finding peace that passes the understanding that we might have and the hope that we will understand a bit better in the future as we continue to hunt for the right questions and seek to find answers. 

In some ways, this allows us to release some things that we hold onto a bit. We release the desperate need to be right. We release the arrogance of surety. We release the comparison of our faith structure to someone else's. And we begin to focus on God more than focusing on what we THINK about God. With this release, there is a generosity of spirit that is often discovered. 

Maybe this is what Paul was talking about when he talks about “dying to self” in 2 Corinthians. Maybe it was what Jesus  was talking about when he speaks about being Born Again in the book of John. It is this idea that we are going to put our trust in God, through our struggle, through our unbelief, and into a comfortability of learning to continually discover who God really is! 

1. What do you trust in? 
2. Are there things that you put your trust in unknowingly? 
3. How can you make sure you are putting trust in God before your understanding of God?