Tag Archives: trust

Trust Versus Fear

The opposite of trust is fear, and fear causes us to make wrong choices. Trusting in God frees us from desperate actions because we believe God will take care of us. When we don’t trust in God, we are left to rely on ourselves. But when we doubt our ability to manage our security, we fall into fear. The uncertainty of the future causes us dread and we feel uneasy because we have little or no control over it.

Fear and trust oppose each other. When we’re filled with fear, we find it hard to trust, if not impossible. When we fully trust, we don’t fear because we have complete confidence in God’s promise and ability to care for us. Most of us fall somewhere in the middle. We’re afraid to trust in God because we doubt He exists or doubt His love and concern. Every choice we make is based on what we believe about our security, what or whom we rely on.

Trusting in God’s Provision

A few years after college, my roommate, Tim, and I went crabbing off the Pismo Beach pier. We had a crab trap, fishing line, and some bait. In setting up the trap, we discovered we had nothing to cut the fishing line. Tim left to search for something sharp to cut the line, hoping someone might help. While I waited for him to return, I asked God for something to cut the line. As soon as I had finished praying, I saw a knife less than three feet away at the edge of the pier. Why hadn’t I seen it before? Was it always there? Had my expectation of God opened my eyes? When Tim came back empty-handed, I held up the knife and smiled. “Look what God provided,” I said.

When we trust in God’s provision, we believe He will provide for our needs. He doesn’t promise to give us our dream job or house, but He will take care of us, often in unexpected ways. Nor does He promise to keep us in our current job or housing. What God will do is keep us in His care when we trust Him to do so, even if it shows up as a friend’s couch to sleep on. If God responded to need alone, He would meet all the unmet needs in the world. But God responds to belief, not to need. He responds to what we believe about our needs and God’s ability to meet them.

When we don’t trust, we fear we won’t have what we need. So we worry about how we will get those things. We worry about what will happen to us. Because of fear, we rationalize our need to keep more for ourselves or take more for ourselves. We lie, cheat, and steal to insure our security because we believe we alone are responsible for it. When we trust God for our needs, we have peace because we know God will meet our basic needs in response to our trust.

Trusting in God’s Protection

I grew up in a neighborhood built near an undeveloped shoreline. The shoreline had unmanaged trails between the tall scrub where kids used to ride their bikes on the weekends. Most of the time, the area was devoid of people. I used to go to this deserted area to think and pray. One time, I noticed a pack of four teenagers in the distance moving in my direction. Feeling unsafe, I turned around to go back to the street. I heard someone shout, “Hey, you,” but I didn’t look so as to pretend I didn’t hear. I asked God to protect me. Then I heard many feet running toward me from behind, getting louder. I continued to trust in God and didn’t run or look behind me, but stayed calm. It would be a lie to say I wasn’t afraid, but in spite of my fear, I placed my safety in God’s hands, believing that if they attacked me, He would be with me. To my amazement, the running sounds stopped abruptly. Curious, I looked behind me, but saw no one. When I looked ahead, I saw a police car parked on the street fifty feet away. God has answered my prayer and protected me.

When we trust in God for protection, we believe in God’s peace in the midst of threat. God doesn’t always protect us from harm. The apostle Paul was jailed and beaten. But he had peace because he believed God was with him. God gave him strength and endurance in those situations. When we don’t trust, we don’t have peace, we feel unsafe everywhere we go, even at home. We buy a gun, we distrust all strangers, we don’t go out alone, we always fear the worst. When we entrust our lives to God, then He becomes responsible for what happens to us. Whatever happens to us, He can give us peace and confidence that He will take care of us in the midst of threat.

Trusting in God’s Justice

When a close friend had wronged me, I was deeply hurt and disappointed. But I entrusted the situation to God. My friend felt justified in his actions at the time, but a year later, he contacted me to apologize. He said that what he had done to me had now happened to him. He now knew how awful he had been and how it felt to be on the receiving end of such treatment. I wasn’t expecting an apology, but God had worked in his life to open his eyes. In my mind, God had brought about His flavor of justice.

When we trust in God’s justice, we believe God sees everything. We believe that God feels deeply about what He sees and will respond when we entrust the situation to Him. I think we often judge God for being inactive, but we often fail to exercise our belief in God’s justice by committing situations to His care. God responds to our belief regarding His handling of injustice, not to the injustice itself. When we don’t trust in God, we feel we must secure our own justice. We get even, we protest, we sue, we refuse to forgive. When we entrust our lives to God, He doesn’t protect us from injustice. But God will work circumstances toward our eventual good, if only to teach us trust, patience, and forgiveness. An example from the Bible is the story of Joseph whose brothers sold him into slavery in Egypt. Joseph experienced many injustices, but he trusted in God who eventually rescued him and raised him to a position of honor where he saved many people during a time of famine.

Trusting in God’s Kindness

You may have noticed a theme in this article that God doesn’t protect us from hardship. What good is it to trust in God if we can’t be assured of an easier life? We experience hardship either way. When we trust in God, we can live in peace instead of fear. Hardship becomes a vehicle for God to show Himself to help us through challenges. God uses the hardship to teach us and change us into people of strength, confidence, and joy.

What we believe about God is important. If we believe in a stingy, distant God, then we experience that very thing. If we believe in a loving, generous God, then we experience mercy and abundance. Our experience of God is based on what we believe about Him. Our belief is often formed by how we have judged the circumstances of our lives. We interpret hardship as God’s abandonment. If we entrust our hardship to God, He can work it to strip away those blocks in our lives that prevent us from experiencing Him.

Benefits of Trusting God

If our experience of God has been negative, then it will be hard to trust. Try to move past judging God for your disappointments. Learn to trust God with your life circumstances. In doing so, fear will have less hold on you and peace will have a stronger hold. When we trust, we find it easier to be patient, to make sacrifices, and to take risks. When we fear, we take shortcuts and miss out on the benefits of a life lived deeply.

Romans 14:23 says that whatever does not proceed from faith is sin. Using the language of this article, I can rephrase this to say: Whenever we don’t trust in God, we sin. When we don’t trust in God, we act from self-preservation that results in behaviors that oppose God’s law of love and deny His goodness. When we trust in God, we are free from sin because we are depending on Him. The goal for me is not freedom from sin because I know that Jesus had died to free me. My goal is freedom to experience God in every way possible, to experience His goodness and presence. When we trust in Him, we experience His involvement in our lives, which encourages us to trust in Him more.

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Rick Hocker is a game programmer, artist and author. In 2004, he sustained a back injury that left him bed-ridden in excruciating pain for six months, followed by a long recovery. He faced the challenges of disability, loss of income and mounting debt. After emerging from this dark time, he discovered that profound growth had occurred. Three years later, he had a dream that inspired him to write his award-winning book, Four in the Garden. His intent was to illustrate one’s growth toward deep communion with God and to share the insights he gained from the personal transformation that resulted from his back injury. He lives in Martinez, California.

Website: http://www.rickhocker.com
Email: mail@rickhocker.com

Engaging God

How do we come to know God? Do we grasp God by reading books? Or by listening to others tell us who God is? Reading a book about someone isn’t as instructive as interacting with that person firsthand. Someone can read all the books written about God, but never experience the living God who interacts with us humans. Our relationship is with an actual person, so our understanding of God ought to include a direct experience of Him. The various people in the Bible all had a direct experience of God. For God to be real to us, we need to experience Him in a real way. I believe God wants us to experience Him.

I want to know the living God, not the God confined to pages in a book. A book cannot contain God because His nature is unlimited. John 21:25 says, “Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.” Besides, our relationship isn’t with a book, but with a living God. The Bible points us to God, but the Bible shouldn’t take the place of God. So how do we engage the living God, the One who right now is watching you read this article?

Starting with Trust

Here is a spiritual principle: God reveals Himself in response to our trust in Him. God doesn’t stand on a street corner and say, “Here I am.” He has no need to prove His existence to the skeptic. If we wait for God to show Himself, it won’t happen. Rather, He waits for us to make the first move in His direction. We risk by choosing to trust God. In response, God makes Himself more real to us.

For the novice, it starts with an initial belief that God is real, often with no solid proof. Later, we understand that God expects us to fully entrust our lives to Him in light of His mercy and sovereignty. At that point, we take the scary step of entrusting our lives to a being we have never seen. For many people, God rewards that step of “faith” with an undeniable experience that validates their act of trusting.

This principle is repeated over and over in our lives. We entrust God with a specific situation, believing that God will work it out according to His wisdom. We place at risk our control over the outcome. By trusting, we risk failure, embarrassment, and loss. Nevertheless, we choose to trust God with the outcome. In response to our trust, God intervenes and makes Himself real by how He answers. We experience God when He sustains us, encourages us, surprises us, or when He sends people who lend a hand or speak the words we need to hear. We glimpse God in those things. We learn about God’s love for us. We learn that God hears us and helps us. We experience God in a way that’s real, but it’s in response to our decision to trust in Him.

Trusting Within Hardships

This principle is one theme in my book, Four in the Garden. Creator tries to impress upon Cherished, the protagonist, that every hardship is an opportunity to trust in Creator. By trusting, Cherished grows in his knowledge of Creator by experiencing Him within those hardships.

In 2004, I suffered a terrible back injury. I couldn’t stand or sit because of excruciating pain. I spent most of my day in bed. At other times, I would lie on the sofa if I could manage the trip from the bedroom. On one occasion, my friend, John, visited me while I was lying on the couch. During that visit, I learned that he had been suffering from abdominal pain for three months. I felt compelled to pray for him and asked him to move closer so I could place my hand on his stomach. After a minute or two, I stopped praying and removed my hand. He said his pain was completely gone. He wept from gratitude and amazement. I wept with him.

The Rewards of Risk

Had I not risked to pray for John, God wouldn’t have healed him that day. I was in tremendous pain during his visit. I could have focused on myself and not have considered offering to pray for him. But I stepped out in trust and faith, not knowing if God would heal him. God surprised both of us.

I suppose I could have been jealous because I was in greater need of healing than John, but I wasn’t jealous at all. I had learned a few things about God from that event. I learned that God is compassionate. I learned that God heals. I needed to be reminded of those things right then. The greatest lesson I learned that day is that God can use me when I am at my lowest point. When I was disabled and in pain, God used me. When I was most in need of healing, God used me to heal. That is a profound lesson in giving, receiving and God’s timing.

My healing wasn’t instantaneous like John’s. It came slowly, over the course of many months. But I took comfort in knowing God as a compassionate healer. So, by taking risks with God, God makes Himself real to us. We come to know God as He reveals Himself to us in response to our trust in Him. By faith, we step into the unknown, and He meets us there to make Himself known.

Getting Out of Our Boat

The story of Jesus walking on water (Matthew 14:22-33) seems to center more on Peter than on Jesus. Jesus’ disciples were in a boat fighting rough weather at night when they saw Jesus walking on the water toward them. On seeing Jesus, Peter asked for permission to come out to Jesus on the water. Peter walked on the water for a short time, but started sinking when he became afraid. At that point, Jesus took hold of him to keep him from sinking and brought him into the boat (verse 31). His experience of Jesus was more dramatic than the other disciples because he took a risk and got out of the boat. Because of that event, all of them were convinced that Jesus was God’s Son (verse 33). But Peter learned so much more. He learned firsthand that Jesus could empower him to do the impossible. Of more importance, he learned that Jesus would take hold of him if he ever found himself sinking or afraid.

If we play it safe and stay in our boat, we won’t encounter God. To the degree we risk is the degree we experience God. God wants us to know Him, but He waits for us to get out of our safety zone and step toward Him in faith and trust. I challenge you to trust God more. If you take that risk, He will engage you and surprise you.

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Rick Hocker is a game programmer, artist and author. In 2004, he sustained a back injury that left him bed-ridden in excruciating pain for six months, followed by a long recovery. He faced the challenges of disability, loss of income and mounting debt. After emerging from this dark time, he discovered that profound growth had occurred. Three years later, he had a dream that inspired him to write his award-winning book, Four in the Garden. His intent was to illustrate one’s growth toward deep communion with God and to share the insights he gained from the personal transformation that resulted from his back injury. He lives in Martinez, California.

Website: http://www.rickhocker.com
Email: mail@rickhocker.com

Transformation Through Trust

Here is an excerpt from a speech I gave about trust:

Do you know what a cistern is? A cistern is an underground reservoir for storing water. Friends of ours in Hawaii have a cistern underneath their house. Rainwater is collected in their cistern and they use this stored rainwater to water their yard and gardens. Each of us has a spiritual cistern within our souls. It is the space within our souls where God dwells. This cistern is like an elastic bladder than can be stretched and expanded to contain more of God’s life within us. We enlarge our cisterns by choosing to trust God, especially when trusting is the most difficult, when life tempts us to doubt and fear.

We can be transformed by life or not. If we choose to trust God, then we are changed to more closely match His holy blueprint for our lives. If we don’t trust, then the transformative effect doesn’t touch us and the things we have gone through are for naught. We miss out and stay the same as before.

God is powerful enough to use anything in our lives to transform us, if we allow it. It is our trust in God that transforms us, not the event itself. At its most basic level, it is our struggle to remain in that state of trust that stretches and enlarges our souls, that increases our capacity for God’s life within us, so that we may be filled with all the fullness of God.

You can read the full speech here.