Learning to Trust Again
Dr. Bev Smallwood
Trust in the 
Lord with all your heart, and lean not unto your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight. (Proverbs 3: 5-6)
In Part 1 of this two-part series on trust, I exposed my soul to you about my own past struggles with trusting God due to loss, tragedy, and prayers answered no. I have the distinct feeling that I am not alone.
In Part 2 I want to take you a little deeper into the scripture that we read in the wisdom literature. I want you to truly understand what we’re being challenged to do. God has allowed me to unearth some valuable nuggets as I’ve discovered the original meanings of certain keywords in the passage. Allow me to break it down now so that we may hear it like the writer meant it. As we do, I pray that we will glean practical steps for maintaining and regaining trust in the Lord.
- Trust in the Lord.
Trust is defined as “to be confident, have a feeling of safety and security when you know that you can rely on someone without fear.” I note here the focus of this trust is the Lord – on the fact that HE will be there for you, no matter what. The trust you’re challenged to is not some rosy belief that when you serve God, every life circumstance will be perfect. “Do right, and everything will go right.” That myth has been the source of many a person’s loss of trust.
Trust in a person (Person!) is a deep-down experience that grows out of that individual’s consistent faithfulness, no matter what the situation. This is truth: it matters not what this crazy life hands us, the Lord is WITH us every step. He will never leave or forsake us. He can be trusted.
- with all your heart, and…
I want to tell you, there are some things that happen that you are never going to figure out in your mind. If you think you’re going to be able to put together all the why’s and how’s and wherefores when life blindsides you with tragedy, you’re going to be stuck for a very long time. You may believe that if you can just understand it all, then you can control it all in the future. (Not!) Listen, some things will simply never make sense – until we are with Him in person. Then none of it will probably matter, but we’ll have plenty of time to talk about it with Him if we want to.
Trust is a matter of the heart. It involves the strong leap of faith into the arms of God. He is the One Who bridges the chasm between how we thought life would be and how it turned out. He gives us hope for the future. Even when your head is spinning and it it seems your life has been Humpty-Dumpty shattered, you can know the truth. The Holy Spirit can whisper the reality of divine hope and the energy to breathe and to take one more step.
- Lean not unto your own understanding.
That word lean originally meant “to rely, to support oneself – like resting oneself against something for support.” The word understanding means “discernment or comprehension.” In other words, you are not going to be able to use your own smarts and your experience to make it alone. You may try to do life while leaning against a facade wall (picture the fake walls called “facades”on the movie sets). Dependence on the structure of your own knowledge, comprehension, and power is definitely a set-up for a crash. Only the principles of God in His Word and the moment-by-moment instructive whispers of the Spirit can provide the wisdom you need to do this very hard thing called life successfully.
- In all your ways…
Ways are not simple actions; they are your patterns. Of course, habits form by the repetition of individual actions, thoughts, and attitudes. However, even this challenging scripture, “in all your ways,” recognizes by its language that our thoughts and behaviors are never going to be perfect. The instruction is, catch those steps that are outside God’s plan quickly and early so that they do not become habits and so that your ways are not contrary to His ways. Habits matter.
- acknowledge Him,
I love what I found when I researched that word acknowledge, which at first glance seems like a rather mild word. It almost sounds like, “Just give a nod to Him or speak to Him,” as if someone walked into a room, and you “acknowledged” her. (This is a good example of why it’s great to do word studies.) No, that word in the original language has a much deeper meaning. It’s “to know, to learn, to perceive, to experience, to know relationally, to know intimately.” It’s also the same word that is used in the Bible for sexual intimacy.
When your way is to walk with Him and to know God intimately, then you know His Heart. (I invite you to go to Youtube and listen to Babbie Mason’s powerful song, “Trust His Heart.”) That’s how you come to have trust in human beings, you know. You walk with them, you really talk with them, and you spend plenty of time with them.
Further, if there’s been a breach of trust in a person, you never regain trust by staying away. You don’t learn to trust in a vacuum. You only begin to trust again as you take the risk to be with him or her, really talk with him, and/or spend plenty of time with her.
In a similar but oh-so-different way, your trust in God can also be renewed. Staying away never does it. Oh, you can be distant while showing up in church every time the doors are open. You can talk about God. But until you talk with Him – a lot – even if what you are talking about is your disappointment – your heart will remain jaded and closed. I did this for years, as I shared with you in Part 1 of this message.
The oh-so-different part is that, unlike people, God is never untrustworthy. It surely may feel that way, but that perception is based on our limited human understanding. We’ve already explored the fallacy of leaning on that. A further difference is that learning to trust an offending individual again can be risky. Opening yourself to God, Who Loves you beyond belief and Who promises to see you through anything – that’s not risky at all. It’s the only way of security and victory. He will never fail.
- and He will make your paths straight.
So we end with the final results. When you come to the end of your life or the closing of a season, and you look back on all that has happened, what will you be able to say? The word path denotes “a well-trodden road, a highway, the course of a person’s life.” And straight? That means “right and good.” In other words, your “well-trodden roads,” the experiences with God you’ve had over and over, will have been illuminated by His Word, guided by His Spirit, and bathed in His Love. Oh, sure, there will have been stumbles and heartaches along the way in this chaotic period of the world’s history in which we live. Yet, through it all, when you “trust in the Lord with all your heart,” you will be able to say in faith from your depths, “It is well with my soul.”
Oh, Lord, my tears flow as I consider Your faithfulness and Your goodness to me. I am overwhelmed with Your grace and Your Love. I trust You with my life, O God.
Dr. Bev Smallwood is a psychologist who founded The Hope Center in 1984. Bev speaks to audiences across the U.S. and around the globe on Magnetic Leadership ® as well as on how to rise above difficult circumstances and come out stronger on the other side. She’s the author of This Wasn’t Supposed to Happen to Me: 10 Make-or-Break Choices When Life Steals Your Dreams and Rocks Your World. Bev’s been interviewed and featured in such national media as FOX News, MSNBC, CNN, USA Today, Entrepreneur, New York Times, SELF Magazine, and many outlets. Her devotional blog, Dr. Bev’s New Morning Devotionals, is followed by many (www.drbevsmallwood.com/newmorning). Dr. Bev may be contacted at 601.264.0890 or by email at Bev@DrBevSmallwood.com.