Trusting in God is a hard thing to do. But, when we do, it leads to our joy.
This might seem obvious, but we often miss out on it. We often think that trusting God will always lead to places we don’t like. Kind of like in college when we are trying to figure out God’s will and we think, “What if God calls me to the worst place or the last thing I want to do?”
One of the things I often encourage people to do who struggle to trust in God is to ask, why don’t you trust God? What keeps you from that? Is it something you think God should have done? Is it because of a past hurt or a relationship that fell apart?
Often, without realizing it, we don’t trust God not because of God but because of ourselves. Somewhere in our lives we had someone close to us who broke trust, who broke a promise, who walked out on us, and so it is hard to trust God.
Once we can see why we don’t trust God and what keeps us from taking that step, we can deal with that.
It isn’t as simple as “just trusting God more.”
The reality, though, is all of us trust in someone or something in our lives.
We trust in people every day.
Yet, the reverse is true, and we know it to be true.
Misplaced trust does not lead to joy.
One of the things that I find most fascinating about Habakkuk chapter 3 is how Habakkuk reminds himself of how God has moved in the past. He recalls how the nation of Israel began, how God brought the nation of Israel out of slavery in the book of Exodus and gave them the 10 commandments.
What Habakkuk is doing is reminding himself of how God has moved in the past. Often our struggle with trust is wondering if God will show up. Habakkuk is showing us, “God worked in the past, so I can trust he will work now and in the future.”
This doesn’t mean that God will work in the same way as in the past. It doesn’t mean he will work on our timetable, but we know he is at work.
You may be in a place where you need to remind yourself how God has worked in the past of your life. Maybe you need to journal or make a list of things he’s done, prayers he has answered. Maybe you need to determine why you don’t trust God, what is holding you back and how to move forward in that. What things are you placing your trust in that will ultimately let you down and take away your joy instead of giving you joy?
