Trusting Our Perfect Parent

Trusting is difficult.  We must first believe that others are capable of meeting our expectations, and then we must wait patiently for them to do so.  This process, then, involves three parts:  the capacities of others, our own expectations, and our level of patience.  Our being responsible for at least two-thirds of the process explains why we often end up trusting some people too much and trusting others far too little.  Even our belief in others capabilities can be determined by our own preconceptions rather than their actual skill level.  Therefore, choosing to trust the correct individuals is a responsibility that lands squarely on each of us eventually.

God is the only individual who merits our unbounded trust because He alone is omnipotent.  How then do we trust Him?

First, we "must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who seek Him" (Heb. 11:6).  This is our very first step toward a trusting relationship with God.  But He has already given up His only Son for us, allowing Christ to die that we might be redeemed from our sins (John 3:16-17).  Could there ever be a better reason for trusting anyone than that He loves each of us that much?  "Love . . .  endures all things" (I Cor. 13:7).  "Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13).

But sometimes we doubt this love--and fail to trust--because of our expectations.  We expect that God will make our lives easy; that we will not experience deep, soul-wrenching pain; that we will automatically prosper in all we do (Gen. 39:3).  We wish that God would come and speak to us face to face or reach out physically and touch us.  We ask for these things because we do not know God well enough and are instead concerned only with those things that we want (James 4:3).  We are quite willing to take for granted God's manifold blessings to us--as long as they come how and when we want.

Our expectations of God should be informed by knowledge of His character.  "Shall we receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?"  (Job 2:10)  God has promised that "all things work together for good to them that love God" (Rom. 8:28 KJV).  But He also "reproves him whom He loves, as a father the son in whom he delights" (Prov. 3:12).  Should we then consider God inconsistent and untrustworthy because He does not meet our human expectations?

No, we should not.  We must trust God to act consistently with His loving character by doing the best thing for us, whether or not it first appears as a good to our limited view.  We must patiently trust God to "give unto [us] beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that [we] might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He might be glorified" (Is. 61:3 KJV).

"What if trials of this life are [His] blessings in disguise?"--"Blessings," by Laura Story