I've been thinking a lot about trust lately. In our kids program at church I've been talking with the children about trusting in Jesus alone for salvation. But that made me think about after. Can we ever stop trusting God? And what does trust even mean? If we say we are trusting God for XYZ, what are we admitting to?
The dictionary definition of trust is, “Reliance on the integrity, ability, strength of a person or thing.” We could also use the words “Confidence, hope.” Trust is a word we probably use frequently: “I’m trusting this chair will hold me, I trust the store will have my order.”
I admit trust is a word that's easy to say but not always easy to do. I've also found it difficult to live out this trust in a daily way. How do we show we trust someone? My biggest struggle is with my children.
Moms are supposed to be the glue that holds a family together and, while that's a nice thought, I don’t find it very comforting. I daily feel the pressure to raise my kids to follow God, be kind, be smart, be humble, be leaders, and the list goes on. Society has made us question everything we do when it comes to raising children. And if we do something wrong, our children will suffer later in life from the strain (that's a little dramatic but you get the idea). When we believe we are completely in control of future outcomes, we obviously have a trust issue.
The truth is no matter how much we mold and lead and influence our children for how we want them to turn out, they are individual people with free choice. There are no guarantees that the perfectly structured childhood we plan for our kids leads them to a perfect adulthood.
It might sound like I'm advocating to do nothing and let the dice fall where they may. Not so. We as parents have the greatest influence and God has given us the responsibility to raise our children to follow him. But we also must trust God with our children. There are a whole list of things God can do for my kids that I just can't. If I run around thinking I have all the answers and all the ability to be everything to my kids, I will very quickly become discouraged and fail. As a sinful human myself, I am not the perfect model of what I want my kids to be. All I can do is follow what I know God wants me to do, teach my children to do the same, and pray God will work in their lives.
Trusting God involves so much more than our initial moment of salvation. Trust means opening my tightly clinched fists and giving God everything - my time, my family, my ministry - and asking him to work. Trust is acknowledging I don't have control and to stop trying to achieve it.
When we come to Christ in salvation, trusting that he only can save us and take our punishment, that is only the beginning of our need to fully rely on God. As we go through the process of sanctification, we see more and more how our lives are transformed by the simple, difficult, daily decision to trust God more than we trust ourselves.
Photo by Muhammad Muzamil on Unsplash