Devotional | Shannon Miller.

Do you have trust issues?  Most of us have been through betrayal, abandonment, manipulation, or abuse–human relationships that fell far short of Biblical ideas of love. We bring this baggage into our relationship with God, and we struggle to trust Him fully, because we’ve never known someone we could trust… fully.

When His actions don’t align with our expectations, our mistrust grows. “God, you promised me–why am I seeing the opposite?” The flaw in this thinking, is the belief that the fulfillment of a promise must be swift and look the way we expect, or the promise was false. We forget that the One who promised has the power to turn any situation around, and often delays to accomplish a greater purpose (John 11:5-44). Behind our “why” is the lie sown by the serpent in the garden, that God is somehow holding out on us (Genesis 3:5).  And it is uprooted by the truth of the Son on a cross, that God is always giving us His very best (John 3:16, Romans 5:8).

“If trust must be earned, hasn’t God unequivocally earned our trust with the bark on the raw wounds, the thorns pressed into the brow, your name on the cracked lips? How will He not also graciously give us all things He deems best and right? He’s already given the incomprehensible. Christ our Crossbeam.” – Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts

He is never holding out on us, even when we don’t understand.

“God is not a man, that he should lie, or a son of man, that he should change his mind. Has he said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it?” (Numbers 23:19, ESV). Here is a Father who never goes back on His word, who is entirely good and loving (1 John 1:5, 4:16). Here is a Love that your wounded heart can trust.

“For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor; no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless. Lord Almighty, blessed is the one who trusts in you,” (Psalm 84:11,12, NIV).