Trust Even When It's Hard

Hey Kids, It’s Mama! 

Happy Monday! 

I hope your holiday weekend was good and relaxing, and you got some much-needed rest. I hope you got to spend some good quality time with your loved ones and celebrate our country’s 250th birthday. 

Being with loved ones can be so joyful for some, and for others, being around loved ones can bring in all sorts of emotions. Not everyone is always happy when they’re with loved ones and family. Sometimes family is the very ones that we love the most, and they can also be the ones that hurt us the most. 

Maybe this seems a little heavy for a Monday morning but, go with me here. I think it will be redemptive. 

Something that the Holy Spirit has been really pressing on my heart about is this idea of trust. Wow, oh wow, what a word! 

When I say “trust”, what sorts of emotions come flooding into your heart? Do you think about how much you can trust and rely on your loved ones to be there when you need them and help you when times get tough? Do you think of your marriage and how well you and your spouse trust each other with every detail in your life? 

Or does the word “trust” bring in some negative emotions for you? 

Maybe you can’t trust and rely on those around you to be there when you need them. Maybe you want to trust your spouse, and maybe at one time you did, but that trust has been broken. It’s really hard to move past the feelings of hurt and anxiety when your trust has been broken, and you want to so badly to trust again, but you just can’t seem to. 

I understand that totally. 

It is so unbelievably hard to move past a hurt and broken trust. A lot of times, our current situation has nothing at all to do with our trust being broken, but rather it is a scar we wear on our hearts that we carry with us from season to season and bring into new relationships with our spouse or our friends, and our vision is skewed. Because we have this scar on our heart, we tend to look at everything around us through the lens of that pain and hurt, right? That’s so unfair to do to ourselves, but it’s also unfair to do to the ones we love and who just want to love us back. 

So what do we do when we feel like we can’t trust anyone? 

We can trust in God. 

Maybe this sounds a little elementary or cliché, but I think sometimes God is the one we want to trust. 

Have you put all your trust in God for a change in a financial situation that didn’t work out? Did you trust God with the marriage that you tried desperately to hang onto,o and it still didn’t work? Did you trust God with a health diagnosis only to find out that all your trust and faith didn’t yield the outcome you thought they would? 

All of these things are hard and should not be made light of. 

But can I challenge you today to stop and think about what you have put your trust and faith in? I know this may seem uncomfortable, but as I said, I really think this will be redemptive. 

The Lord has been dealing with me about my trust issues, if you will, and I have to say, it’s not been very comfy. Some of the thought patterns I’ve had about trust and where to put my trust have been challenged in the last week, and I think they’re worth sharing.

1. I’ve had misplaced trust.t 

   1. Something that the Lord reminded me of in my quiet time with Him was that I have been misplacing my trust. I have been putting my trust in the wrong people and the wrong things when I should have been trusting Him. Easier said than done, right? Trust me, I get it. But the Lord reminded me of something this week, and He said, " Where does your help come from again? Look up to the hills and tell me where your help comes from.” 

This is, of course, a scripture from Psalms 121, which reads: 

“I lift my eyes towards the mountains. Where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth” (Psalm 121:1-2). Later in the same chapter, we read that “the Lord will protect you from all harm” (Psalm 121:7), meaning that no matter what we face, we can trust God, our heavenly Father, to take care of us and provide for us. We can’t trust our family and our spouse to provide that kind of support. Although we can trust them with other things, we have to realize that God has us in the palm of His hand and He will protect us and lead us and guide us if we learn to trust Him and His voice. How do we know we can trust God, though? 

2. His Word is His promise. 

   1. The Bible is full of promises from God to His children. From cover to cover, we see His Goodness and His mercy in every situation, and we know that we can trust Him with all things. Just like sheep can trust a good shepherd to provide what they need: food, shelter, water, so too can we trust God to provide what we need. In Psalm 23, we read: “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want” (Psalm 23:1). There is absolutely nothing I could need that the Lord doesn’t already see and will provide in some shape, form, or fashion. I can trust God to provide everything I need, even when it feels like I am all alone in the middle of a storm I can’t see my way out of. God’s always there. Psalm 23 goes on to say: “Even when I go through the darkest valley, I fear no danger, for you are with me; your rod and your staff- they comfort me” (Psalm 23:4). This is God’s promise to be right by our side no matter what it looks like or how big our problem might be; He’s got us. All we have to do is trust Him to provide all that we need. Because we can trust in God without the fear of being let down, we can also trust in Him even when we can’t control the outcome. 

3. Trust even when you don’t know the outcome.

   1. Something that the Lord has been really working on me with is the idea of trusting Him even when I can’t control the outcome. If you have ever had your trust broken, you know that it is so hard not to be in control of everything and manipulate situations for your desired outcome, right? I know it’s hard for me. In my mind, I think that if I can be in control of a situation or an outcome, I won’t get hurt again. But if there’s one thing I have learned about God, it’s that His way is not my way and His way is always better. I can trust that no matter what I think I might want or how I think an outcome should be, God will always do the best thing for me at that time, even when it doesn’t seem like the best thing for me. His Word promises this too. In Romans 8:28, we read: “We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to His purpose”. We are called by God to be whole and to do the things He has called us to do in this life. Because we know that we have been called by God, we know that His plans and purposes for us can be trusted. Because God only wants good things for His children, He can use even the worst heartbreak to write the most beautiful love story. He can use the worst day of our lives, the days we didn’t think we would make it through, to pave the way for the best days of our lives. Because nothing is ever wasted with God, we know we can trust all of the hard days and all of the good days to Him, and He will always work it out for our good and His glory. 

Trust can be hard to do when you’ve been let down so many times. It can feel downright painful sometimes to let those walls down. Trust me, I know. But I want to challenge you this week to let God begin mending the brokenness in your heart and let Him put the pieces back together. You can’t put all your trust in those around you. You can learn to trust them in some aspect or another, but when they let you down, and they will, because we are all flawed human beings, you can stand firm on the promises of God. You know that when someone breaks your trust or lets you down, you can always go to your Heavenly Father for comfort because He will never fail you. 

I hope this has been encouraging for you, and I hope that if you are struggling with misguided trust, I hope this has encouraged you to redirect that trust to the One who deserves it. 

Mama loves you, kids, and I’ll talk to you real soon.