Trusting in a God We Don't Fully Understand

"But I trusted in thee, O Jehovah: I said, Thou art my God." (Psalm 31:14 ASV)

Trusting in God is often something easier said than done, but it is so crucial if we want to live the lives He has planned for us. Often we pray to Him and He doesn't answer the way we thought He would. He does things in His own time. His ways are mysterious to us. We see good people get hurt, we see natural disasters decimate entire populations, and we wonder if God can be trusted to handle things.

The truth is, He absolutely can and should be trusted. Things that seem tragic or even evil to us may serve a greater good. There is no way for us to know God's motives for the things He does or the things He allows, but that's ok. It's not up to us to decide whether He should act or not. It's entirely dependent upon His most perfect will. Someday, when we enter through the gates of heaven, all things will be made clear to us, but for now our job is simply to trust and obey.

But how can we trust in a God we don't even understand? How can we allow Him control over us when we don't agree with all of the decisions He might make? It is foolishness to believe that we know better than God what is best. It's like the hobbyist who tries to tell the professional how to do his job. We need to remember that God made us. He made this world. He knows it better than we can even begin to grasp. Who would you trust to fix something more than the one who originally created it? Just because we don't understand what our mechanic is doing under the hood of our car doesn't mean that he's doing something wrong. In the same way, just because we don't understand God's plan doesn't mean it's not what is best for us.

So what should we do then when doubts begin to creep in and we find ourselves interfering with matters we have already given over to God? As Christians, we should be praying every day that God would work His will in our lives. But we also need to pray that he would strengthen our faith in Him so that we can learn to step back out of His way and just trust that He is doing it.