How To Trust God When You Don’t Understand

Hey there, sister! Have you ever experienced the challenge of trusting God when things don’t make sense? Have you struggled to lean not on your own understanding? There are moments in life when we find ourselves in a place of uncertainty, unable to grasp the bigger picture.

But it is precisely in those moments that our trust in the Lord becomes vital.

In Proverbs 3:5, we are encouraged to trust in the Lord with all our hearts and not rely on our own understanding. But what does this truly mean? In today’s blog post, I will guide you on a journey of discovering how to trust God when understanding eludes us.

I will help you to anchor your faith when everything seems impossible.

 

Trusting God When You Don’t Understand His Plans

Faith in God is a risky thing. Trusting in the Lord means that we’re putting ourselves and sometimes our lives on the line for something we can’t necessarily see. Your situation might be a job. It might be that you’re trusting God when you don’t understand how He will provide the next rent payment.

No matter what it is.

Faith requires risk.

Do you remember when you were a child and your mom or your dad gave you a rule of some kind? Maybe they told you not to play with matches or they told you not to watch too much TV every day. I know when I was younger, I never understood why my mom stressed so much about paying attention in school.

School was boring. I was shy and I didn’t have many friends.

There were days when I’d sit there and cry while I did my homework, or I’d sit in class but my mind was everywhere except for that classroom. I imagine myself as an adult, married and being the cool mom that my kids and their friends would love.

As a child, I never understood my parents’ rules. I thought they were too strict and I grew to be a little bit resentful of how much freedom my schoolmates had.

Looking back, as I recently turned 31, I can see what my parents were trying to do.

 

Trusting God Means Understanding That He’s Like A Parent.

It means to lean not on your own understanding at all.

My parents were trying to instill a good work ethic in me. My parents were trying to help me understand how to get ahead in life and prepare for life after school.

And I’m incredibly grateful.

God is really like a parent. He has plans we might not understand right now and He sees things that we can’t see in our present.

But that doesn’t mean that God’s plans aren’t good. That doesn’t mean that what He’s putting us through right now doesn’t matter.

We don’t have to understand God’s plans to trust Him with all our heart. We just need to trust in the Lord to understand His plans for us.

 

 

Can You Trust In The Lord When Things Seem Impossible?

I’ve been documenting my travel visa journey for a few weeks now. 

Initially, I thought that the visa was a guarantee. After all, I’d already received my work permit, I had money in the bank and I had a great travel record. But unfortunately, none of that mattered to the embassy.

They denied my application.

Then they denied my appeal.

I had spent thousands of dollars up to this point preparing for the move of a lifetime; a new chapter of my life. But after two denials, everything that I had hoped for, everything that I had dreamed of seemed impossible.

That’s probably how Gideon felt when he was put into a position where he had to have faith and trust in God even though his situation seemed impossible.

 

Trusting God means doing what He tells you to do even when it makes no sense.

In the bible, we’re told the story of Gideon. In Judges 7, the bible tells us that Gideon and his men were face to face with an army of over 100,000 soldiers. I can imagine that these soldiers were all physically fit, and were ready to throw down at a moments notice.

Gideon, on the other hand, only had 300 soldiers, some of which I’m sure had never even touched a sword. I can imagine that Gideon probably thought that God had lost his mind.

How could they face so many soldiers on their own?

How could they win?

The bible tells us that God commanded Gideon, “At the point when I advise you to, blow the trumpets, break the pots, and let torchlight out of nowhere sparkle out in the night. It will appear as though a huge battalion is encompassing the camp. It will create mass disorientation, and the opposing army will wind up battling one another.”

And you know what happened? Gideon obeyed. He did exactly what God commanded him to do and he was victorious. Gideon didn’t lean on his own understanding of the situation. He simply trusted in the Lord.

After my second visa denial, I wanted to give up so badly. I even went as far as to tell my parents that I just couldn’t do it anymore. I didn’t have the strength to go any further.

But God said no.

God told me to give it one more try. 

So I did.

Sometimes God tells you to do something that appears downright ridiculous—like going into a war with no weapons or applying for a visa after two denials. Faith is obeying God even when you don’t really understand why or what He’s asking you to do.

You have to trust God completely.

You need to trust Him with all your heart.

 

How to Trust in the Lord With All Your Heart:

When I turned in my final visa application, I had a serious conversation with God. I told Him that this was it. This was a situation where I was placing all of my faith on this final application and then I was done.

I wasn’t going to apply anymore or cry over anything. This final trip to Tokyo would be just that- my final and I was trusting God to come through for me.

Not only had I resigned from my job, but I had also left my apartment, told my city hall that I was leaving and had already shipped my boxed ahead of me. I needed come to come through for me.

But if you’re anything like me, it can be hard. And it was. So God had to bring me through a series of steps to get me to a place of trusting Him completely and these are the steps I’ll share with you below.

 

#1. Check That God Is Who He Says He Is

How do we know that God is who He says He is? Before we can trust anyone in our lives, whether it’s a doctor or a future employee, we need to know that they are who they say they are. 

We need to check their references and qualifications. And in the same way we find out about the people around us, we can find out about who God is.

The truth is that in the bible, there are many ways that God shows us exactly who He is.

Psalm 90:2 says “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.”.  Genesis 1:1 says “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”

Psalm 86:8–10, the bible tells us “There is none like you among the gods, O Lord, nor are there any works like yours. All the nations you have made shall come and worship before you, O Lord, and shall glorify your name. For you are great and do wondrous things; you alone are God.”

Time and time again, the bible tells us exactly who God is and there are stories upon stories that tell us that God is trustworthy, that He can never lie, that He is always with us and that He can do anything.

If you want to know who God is, find out what the bible says about Him.

 

#2. Ask God For His Help

God knows that you’re struggling to trust Him and He wants to help us to trust Him.

But to do this, sometimes we need to ask God for exactly what we want- the ability to trust Him completely.

Tell God that you need Him to help you to trust and ask Him to step in and take control. Even though God knows that you are struggling, He wants nothing more than for you to come to Him and ask for help when you need it. God sees more than we can ever see. He knows more than we will ever know. He works in ways that are way beyond our understanding.

John 14 verses 13-14 tells us “Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.”

Why?

Because He wants you to build your faith muscles. Your Father wants you to come to Him, to talk to Him and build that relationship with Him.

 

#3. Hold On To God’s Unchanging Hand

When you’re tired and weary by everything happening around you, it can be easy to let go of God and everything He is. It also takes a lot for you to hold on to Him.

But holding on to God’s unchanging hand makes all the difference.

If we want to trust God then we have to physically do so. No one can trust Him for us. That means that trusting God requires us to hold on to Him and the promises in His word.

Here are some promises from the word of God to help us to hold on to God when things get difficult:

“Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord will personally go ahead of you. He will be with you; he will neither fail you nor abandon you.”–Deuteronomy 31:8

“The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?”–Psalm 27:1

Hold God’s hand, be still and trust while He works.

 

 

#4. Let Go & Let God Handle It

The bible tells us in Proverbs 3:5 to “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.” As someone who is a recovering control freak, letting go has been one of the hardest parts of trusting God.

I like to have the wheel so that I can go where Google maps takes me, but trusting God requires us to take our hands off the wheel and sit back as He does what only He can do.

Does something in your life seem out of control? If so, it is time to let God handle it.

As you begin to let go of trying to control everything and anything that happens in your life you’ll soon realize that there are responsibilities you have been carrying on your back that you had no business ever picking up.

In this season, I have found that there are many areas in my life where I have no control over the outcomes and as hard as it’s been I have had to let go and let God take control.

1 Peter 5:7 tells us “Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you.”

This verse is not a request, but a command for us to literally hand everything over to our Heavenly Father because He is the only one qualified to handle those things that are bigger and way beyond our control.

Having faith means that sometimes (or all of the times) we just have to let go and let God be in control of things.

 

#5. Keep A Record Of God’s Faithfulness

Our God is a faithful God and because of that, there will always be evidence of the amazing things that He has done in our life.

If I were to sit down and document every good thing that God has done or every time that God has come through for me I would never stop writing.

When it comes to remembering God’s faithfulness, it is easy for us to become forgetful. It’s easy for us to ignore all the good that God has done in our lives and see every bad thing happening around us.

We have to find ways of remembering God’s faithfulness towards us.

God is so gracious to us and when we begin to trust Him with the everyday stuff, even the small stuff, it builds our confidence and gives us permission to trust Him even more in the future.

God wants us to put Him first in our lives. He wants us to put all of our faith and trust in Him, all the time, in everything. He wants us to lean on Him even when we don’t understand

I want to leave you with this verse from Romans 15:13  which says “I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.”

All my love,