How to Trust God

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

The above verse was one of the first verses I ever memorized as a new Christian, and it has stuck with me for close to forty years. But what does it mean to trust in God? How do we know when we hear from Him, and how do we step back from our desires and submit to Him alone? Surprisingly, the verse above gives us the answer.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart

When it comes down to it, if we are honest with ourselves, we like to be in control of our lives. When we aren't in control of a situation, we feel helpless. I believe every Christian struggles with this - surrendering control of our lives to God. It is different than acknowledging and accepting Jesus as your Saviour. Surrendering to God with your whole heart is a moment-by-moment process. It is a conscious decision to not take back control of life's situations but to release them to God and trust Him with ALL your heart. So what happens when we do that? What does it look like?

Lean not on your own understanding

When we trust in God and allow Him control of our lives, we spend more time in His Word and in prayer. When we do that, our thought patterns change (our minds become renewed and transformed), and we seek God's will over our own understanding. We acknowledge that His ways are the best, and little by little, we start to see a change in how we conduct ourselves.

In all your ways submit  to
(or acknowledge) Him

As we become renewed in our thought patterns, we notice that important decisions are immediately taken to God in prayer. Our daily activities are "tuned," so to speak, to hear what the Holy Spirit is telling us about any given situation. The bad habits we exhibited before being saved are gone. They are replaced with the will to please God and submit to Him in all things. Do those wants and desires still rear their ugly heads? Of course, they do! Satan will always try to tempt us away from God. This is why the Apostle Peter warns us to be on the alert (1 Peter 5:8-9). But by submitting to God or acknowledging Him in every aspect of our lives, something extraordinary happens.

He will make your paths straight

As we trust in God, He leads us in the way we should go. When I wrote my first book, it was during a time of intense upheaval in my life. During emergency surgery, my vocal cords were damaged, and my 30-year singing ministry ended in the blink of an eye. When I felt the Holy Spirit nudging me to write a book, I ignored Him because I believed the Lord would heal me. When the pressure within me to write grew to the point where I could not ignore it, I realized that perhaps God had other plans for me. So one day, I submitted to Him and placed my hands on my computer keyboard and said, "Okay, Lord. Use my hands like you used my voice." By submitting to the Lord and not leaning on my own understanding, I ended up writing a novel about the life of Christ through the eyes of His mother. Come to Me would be the starting point of a new ministry for me. God's ways may seem strange at first, but when we submit to Him, we learn that His ways are better and with our best interests in mind.

When we listen and obey, God will lead and guide us in the right direction. When we refuse to obey or we don't go to Him first for advice, He will let us deal with our choices and hope we learn from them. So trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understanding. Take that step of faith today and commit your ways to Him. You may be pleasantly surprised at where He takes you.