Letting Go and Trusting God: 8 Reasons to Trust Him
This morning, I was startled to find the wood line painted grey. Nevertheless, the bleak scene matched the state of my soul. I sat by the window and wondered, What is God doing in my life? Letting go and trusting God felt nearly impossible.
Above the hardwoods, a lavender cloud arched its back into the shape of a question mark. Perhaps the heavens were questioning God’s purposes as well.
Later in the day, I took a walk beneath the naked arms of the maples, oaks, and sycamores.
I let my mind trace the footprints of a handful of recent disappointments—disappointments that felt far heavier than a dismal shift of seasons. I counted the losses, stared down some shattered dreams, and let the weight of a tough season settle heavily on my shoulders.
Letting Go and Trusting God
As I walked, I let myself face feelings of disappointment and discouragement.
I asked that hard question again, “What is God doing in my life?”
The forest was silent.
I thought of the disciple Peter as I walked. After denying Jesus three times, Peter wept bitter tears. Most likely, Peter faced some tough days when he returned to his trade as a fisherman. Most likely, his heart ached as he looked back with regret.
Shortly after Peter’s betrayal, Jesus returned to the shoreline to reinstate Peter as they shared a meal. Three times, Jesus asked Peter if he loved him. Ultimately, Jesus restored Peter and commissioned him to lead others in the faith.
It seems Jesus knew something Peter did not know.
Jesus knew that Peter’s denials would bring to light a part of Peter’s heart that needed to change before he could lead others.
In the same way, Jesus knows the parts of our hearts that need to come into the light so that he can remove our stumbling blocks. He often uses trials, pain, and disappointment to purify our hearts.
Nothing purifies like the refining fire.
We like to quote Romans 8:28 and declare that God works all things together for good, but we often neglect the verse that comes next. The next verse tells us that God’s idea of “good” is shaping our hearts to look more like Jesus’ heart.
God Uses Trials to Shape Us Into Jesus’ Image
As I walked beneath the sycamores, I considered the troubles I’d faced throughout the past season. Suddenly, God’s good purpose became clear: God is using discomfort to bring the impurities in my heart into the light. When these impurities come into the light, they can be removed.
Friend, your heavenly Father wants to speak truth into your discouraging circumstances as well.
He is calling you to face your pain instead of running from it because running from your pain might be the very behavior that is continually blocking you from your breakthrough. No matter what you are facing today, God wants to use it for his good purposes.
Let’s look at four ways God works all things together for good in our lives. Perhaps these truths will help you see what God is doing in your life when your circumstances don’t make sense. Then, we’ll explore eight reasons to trust God in life’s trials.
Letting God and Trusting God: 4 Reasons for Trials
1. God uses difficulties to point us to our unchanging source of hope.
When we live with hope based on pleasant circumstances, our hope is bound to falter through life’s difficult seasons.
Difficulties remind us to put our hope in Jesus—the One who has promised never to leave us.
Throughout the darkest valleys of my life, I have learned to speak these words: “My hope is not in getting to the other side of this valley. My hope is in the One who has promised to walk with me each step of the way.”
“My hope is not in getting to the other side of this valley. My hope is in the One who has promised to walk with me each step of the way.” #hope Share on X2. Tough times lead us to the unchanging part of our identities.
I’ve been known to come unglued when life goes off the rails. Not long ago, a friend gently asked me, “Stacey, are you stressed out because you’ve put too much worth in how this turns out?”
I realized that I was finding my identity through my performance again.
God wants us to find our identities in the only truth about us that can never change: We are his beloved children.
This can never be taken away from us.
Difficult times have a way of showing us where we have anchored our identities on shifting sands. God is calling us to plant our feet on the foundation of his love for us.
3. God uses trials to shift our priorities.
God often uses painful circumstances to draw us back to his first two commands: Love God and love others (see Luke 10:27).
We are meant to live our lives loving God and loving others.
Our disappointments often tear down idols like success, perfectionism, and even unhealthy dependence upon relationships. God uses our disappointments to remind us of what matters most in our lives.
4. Struggles teach us about dependence.
When life is rolling along smoothly, we begin to believe we can make it on our own.
We’re prone to turn away from God and turn toward independence.
Painful seasons remind us of our desperation to lean on the One who guides our paths and carries us through the rivers and the fires of life.
Letting God and Trusting God: 8 Reasons to Trust Him
Now that we’ve explored the reasons for trials and troubles in life, let’s lean into these truths about God’s trustworthiness.
1. God can only be good.
We don’t always understand why God allows difficulties in our lives, but we can trust that he is always good.
When God permits difficulties and challenges, we can trust that he can also turn them around for good purposes.
Second Corinthians 9:8 reads, “And God is able to make all grace overflow to you, so that, always having all sufficiency in everything, you may have an abundance for every good deed” (NASB).
2. God will never leave your side.
We can also trust God because he promises never to leave us.
Hebrews 13:5 reads, “He Himself has said, ‘I will never desert you, nor will I ever abandon you.’”
Our God goes with us.
Are you walking into a troubling situation today? God goes with you into the difficult circumstances in your workplace. He is with you when your life at home is challenging. He goes with you to the hospital, the cemetery, and the school building where your child is struggling.
Your loving Father will never leave you.
3. God can turn around any situation and use it for your good and his glory.
Joseph’s brothers sold him as a slave, and God used the evil act to later save Joseph’s entire family from starvation. God hears our prayers and can use even the most horrific losses for good.
Romans 8:28 reminds us, “And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”
4. God is always for you.
Do you need the reminder that you are not alone—that someone is standing in your corner and has your back?
At times, we all feel alone and overlooked. Meanwhile, God never takes his eye off of his children.
God loves you, and he is for you. We find this promise in Romans 8:31: “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us?”
5. God never changes.
Malachi 3:6 reads, “I, the Lord, do not change.”
In a world of constant change, we can find peace in the fact that God never changes. His character is always the same. He is always trustworthy, loving, and good.
No matter what happens in your life, find peace in the truth that God is with you, and he hasn’t changed.
6. Everything God does is done in love.
God is the embodiment of love.
1 John 4:8 reads, “The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”
Perhaps the most powerful of these 10 reasons to trust God is that God is always loving. His ways are not our ways, but he always acts in love.
7. God’s plans for you are good and full of hope.
God spoke these words to his people when they were captives in the foreign land of Babylon: “For I know the plans that I have for you, plans for prosperity and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope” (Jeremiah 29:11).
These words are true for his children today as well.
God’s plans for you are good. Your future is full of goodness and hope. Trust that you will see God’s goodness in the future even if your current circumstances are difficult.
8. God wants to direct your paths.
Proverbs 3:5-6 offers the following directive:
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.”
God is inviting you to place your trust in him. When you do—relying on him instead of trying to make sense of your circumstances—he will direct your life. This is a promise you can count on. There is freedom in letting go and trusting God.
Trusting God in Tough Times
I walk through the autumn forest until darkness comes. When I return to the house, I wish I could say that my heart feels lighter.
It doesn’t. Letting go and trusting God is a process, and it doesn’t come easily.
Facing my disappointment head-on is harder than pushing the pain aside and barreling forward with both eyes on the horizon. However, it’s also well worth every painful step of the journey.
I know that God is calling me to keep pressing forward. This is true for you today, too, friend. Keep putting one foot in front of the other. God is working in your life. He is preparing you for a future calling that will crush you if you don’t build the stamina needed to face it.
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