What God Thinks of My Trust Issues
My name is Madison Bloker, and I have trust issues.
There. I said it.
Anybody else willing to own up to this too? I mean, how easy is it to have something you want done and just do it yourself? And how hard is it to trust someone else to do that same thing to the standard you want? To believe them when they say they’ll deliver or do what they said they would do?
For me, it’s pretty darn hard.
My top two strengths are being an achiever and an activator. I can dream up and think up big plans and goals, and I’m good at executing them. However… this also makes me someone with bad trust issues, someone who likes to just grab the reins and take over. Someone who seeks out the next accomplishment instead of seeking out God’s next step.
Last week I wrote a blog about practicing patience… how God has been telling me to take this time of not knowing what’s next for my life and dig into Him instead of my own frantic pursuits and desires.
So I’ve been doing this… I decided to pick a chapter of the Bible and just dig in, and over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been reading Romans. Because I took that one step that God placed on my heart, He’s revealed a lot to me about these trust issues I have.
He has seriously placed things in front of me so boldly and has used these verses in Romans to show me these two things:
1. He will set the pace and path if we let Him.
Check out these verses that reveal this:
God does not respond to what we do; we respond to what God does. Our lives get in step with God and all others by letting Him set the pace, not proudly or anxiously trying to run the parade.
The story we’re given is a God-story, not an Abraham story… He trusted God to set him right instead of trying to be right on his own.
Not because he got God’s attention by living like a saint, but because God made something out of Abraham when he was a nobody.
He came up strong, ready for God, sure that God would make good… Christ arrives on time to make this happen.
The one who trusts God to do the putting-everything-right without insisting on having a say in it is one fortunate man.
His purpose is not a hit-or-miss thing dependent on what we do or don’t do, but a sure thing determined by his decision, flowing steadily from his initiative.
Because instead of trusting God, they took over. They were absorbed in what they themselves were doing. They were so absorbed in their “God projects” that they didn’t notice God right in front of them, like a huge rock in the middle of the road.
Troubles can develop passionate patience in us - that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next. We can’t round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit.
It’s the word of faith that welcomes God to go to work and set things right for us. - you’re not “doing” anything; you’re simply calling out to God, trusting him to do it for you.
2. Life with Him is an abundant life.
Check out these verses that reveal this:
Offer yourselves to the ways of God and the freedom never quits.
Throw yourselves wholeheartedly and full-time… into God’s way of doing things… You’re living in the freedom of God.
Raised into a light-filled world by our Father…
Lives healed and expansive in holiness…
We’re free to live a new life in the freedom of God… It’s adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike, “What’s next, Papa?”
Those who trust God’s action in them find that God’s Spirit is in them - living and breathing God!... attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious free life.
When God lives and breathes in you… you are delivered from that dead life.
It’s not easy to place all your trust into something you can’t physically see. It’s not even easy to place all your trust into something you can physically see. But God is calling us to something far more plentiful than anything we could dream up ourselves. He’s calling us to let Him show us the way rather than pave it ourselves. He’s calling us toward an abundant, fruitful, and freedom-filled life… a life that can only be lived with Him laid as our foundation. Will it be easy? No. But will it be worth it? 1000x yes.
God knows I struggle with trust issues. He knows I struggle with seeking out approval and accomplishments from worldly things rather than Him. He knows I sometimes question His plan for me. But God also loves me, and even when I seem lost, He’s knocking at the door. I just have to have the faith to open up the door and expect Him to be there.
I want to challenge you to listen for the knock. To wait expectantly for God. To remind yourself that it’s not about what you want, but what He wants for you. That it’s not about what you will do, but what His will is for you. That it’s not about what you see, but what He sees in you. Talk with Him. Walk with Him. Dig into Him. Once you take one step, He’ll call you towards another. He’s bringing you into this beautiful, light-filled, and freedom-filled life.
Trust that.