Trust In the Lord

What does it mean to trust in the Lord with all your heart? It means not leaning on your understanding but rather leaning into God’s wisdom, power, love, and promises for your life. It involves a certain distrust of self, which is countercultural thinking, especially in times of uncertainty.

So many times, the future feels uncertain, and worry seems to occupy too much room in our hearts and heads. But remember this: God is already in all of our tomorrows. He knows our way, and He has a plan. We can be assured His plan is always best for us, even when we do not fully understand. When we lean into God, we can have peace even in the absence of understanding. What are we leaning on? If it is something or someone other than God, we are leaning on the wrong thing.

The good news is that God never asks us to figure it out all on our own. He simply asks us to trust Him and recognize His leadership and sovereignty in our lives. He promises to make our pathways straight if we acknowledge Him in all our ways.

How do we trust in the Lord with all of our heart? We learn to trust in His Word and His will.

Jesus was the ultimate example of trusting the Word of God. It has been estimated that ten percent of everything Jesus said in the New Testament was a quotation from the Old Testament. Even in His darkest moments, Jesus was quoting from Scripture because that is how deeply He trusted His Father. When we lean into Jesus, who immersed Himself in the Word of God, we can immerse ourselves in the Word of God to honor and trust Him.

When we do this, He brings clarity through the fog, light through darkness, and straight paths in a very crooked world. He knows what is around the corners of life where we cannot fully see. No matter how we feel or our current situation, we can be confident that God’s presence will go before us, paving our pathways, and guiding and guarding our steps. All we must do is trust in the Lord with all our heart and lean not on our own understanding.

Reflect & Pray

God, thank you for guiding me. I am so grateful that I do not need to navigate life on my own. I trust that no matter what, You will order my steps and make my paths straight. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Go Deeper with Ben Young

Run the Race
One of the greatest movies ever made is Chariots of Fire. It is a real life story of two British track stars and their quest for an Olympic gold medal. One of these men, Eric Liddell, is a Scottish minister who has the legs of a racehorse and the heart of a champion. His rival competitor is a talented but embittered runner named Harold Abrahams. Liddell runs with a charismatic passion because he is racing to the glory of God. Abrahams is running to gain a sense of approval and acceptance. He is stuck on the performance treadmill of life.

The contrast throughout the film is stark – one man is running with great joy and ease because he knows the acceptance of his Heavenly Father. The other man is running to prove his very existence and worth as a human being. Often, in our spiritual trek, we start off enjoying the amazing grace of God on a regular basis. But somewhere along the way, we get tripped up, and instead of relating to God on the basis of grace, we revert to a performance mentality.

God never intended for us to relate to Him based on our good day/bad day performance. Jerry Bridges says it so beautifully in his book The Discipline of Grace: “Your worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God’s grace. And your best days are never so good that you are beyond the need of God’s grace.” We need to ask ourselves, are we caught in the performance trap, or are we experiencing the joy of running the race with grace?