Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.
Proverbs 3:5-6

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Trusting the Lord is a trait that you must learn. Rarely does it come naturally or easily. It’s also the opposite of what the world teaches you. 

When I consider how I have learned to trust God, I think of my mother’s example. I have vivid memories of sitting around with my family as a child singing all together and having a grand time. But my mother would tell you what was really going on—that she was in a rough season and was turning to song to trust God with her whole heart instead of letting her own understanding of her situation stop her. 

My mom and her ten children had been abandoned by her husband of 15 years. In that season, she ran into a dear friend and decided to be open when she was asked, “How have you been?” That same friend took her and all of her kids in, and we stayed with her for a couple of years. She connected us to her local church where my mom joined a small group,  eventually sharing her testimony with the women in her circle. In her group was a sweet woman who worked for a company that helps low-income families find housing. As she got connected with this company, through prayer and reading God’s word, she felt the Lord promise her a house for her and her children. The memory I have of sitting around and singing was when she told us to get downstairs and start packing our things because God had found us a house. A few weeks after that, we moved into a beautiful five-bedroom home in the suburbs. 

My mom could never have known the sequence of events that followed that honest response to her friend’s simple question. 

Trusting God requires faith and faith requires knowledge about the truth about God. We have to know who He is to know what he can do. He is sovereign and in control of all things—not some things but all things. I asked my mom what kept her going at that time, and she said Jeremiah 29:11. It says, “For I know the plans that I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” If we don’t know God, we can think that my mom just got lucky. In the right place at the right time. But there is no such thing as luck when you have an almighty God. In your day to day, you may not see how, but that doesn’t mean that He’s not working. 

The more you spend time with God, the more you learn about Him, and the easier it is to trust Him. So get to know God and see how your trust in His word grows. I’ve seen my mom trust in the Lord with all her heart and acknowledge Him in all her ways, and He’s never steered her wrong.

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