Learning to Trust Him

Someone asked me this question recently: "How can I trust God after being disappointed and let down by Him?"

And honestly, the question has stayed with me for days.

Not because I didn't know the answer, but because I wanted to make sure I wasn't giving a rehearsed Christian response. This person wasn't looking for a Bible verse to temporarily soothe their pain. They were carrying years of disappointment, grief, unanswered prayers, and wounds that had left them wondering if God could really be trusted.

I sat with that question. I prayed about it. And if I had to answer with complete honesty, I would say this: I trust Him because I know Him.

I trust Him because I have a relationship with Him.

I trust Him because I have seen His hand in my life too many times to deny His faithfulness.

I trust Him because there were seasons when I should have fallen apart completely, and somehow His grace carried me through.

I trust Him because even in the valley, He never left.

I trust Him because I know His character.

I trust Him because He has been kind to me when I didn't deserve it, patient with me when I ran from Him, and faithful to me when I doubted Him.

I trust Him because He is the reason I still breathe.

I trust Him because even when things don't work out the way I hoped, He is still God. His goodness is not determined by my circumstances, and His sovereignty is not diminished by my disappointment.

But if I'm being honest, I also understand the other side. I understand what it's like to pray for something and not receive it. To ask God to intervene and watch things unfold in a way you never wanted. To carry pain you never asked for. To wonder why He allowed certain people into your life. To wonder why He didn't stop the betrayal, the heartbreak, the loss, the trauma, or the suffering. And maybe that's where trust becomes difficult. Because it's one thing to trust God when everything is going well. It's another thing to trust Him when your heart is shattered. When you're carrying questions that still don't have answers. When you've spent years trying to make sense of what happened to you.

How do you let Him in again when it feels like He allowed the very thing that broke you? The truth is, I don't think trust starts with understanding.

I think trust starts with honesty.

I think trust begins when we stop pretending we're okay and bring our disappointment directly to God.

When we tell Him we're angry.

When we tell Him we're confused.

When we tell Him we don't understand.

When we admit that our faith feels fragile.

God has never been intimidated by honest questions. Read the Psalms.

David questioned.

Job questioned.

Jeremiah questioned.

Even Jesus cried out in anguish.

God is not asking us to suppress our pain. He's inviting us to bring it to Him. And maybe healing begins when we stop seeing trust as a feeling and start seeing it as a decision.

A decision to believe that even when I don't understand His ways, His heart toward me is still good.

A decision to believe that my suffering may have changed me, but it has not separated me from Him.

A decision to believe that God's silence is not His absence.

A decision to believe that even when I cannot trace His hand, I can trust His character.

No, I don't have all the answers. There are still things I don't understand. There are prayers I'm still waiting on. There are chapters of my story that I wish had been written differently.

But after everything I've walked through, this is what I know:

God has never abandoned me.

Not once.

Not in my darkest moments.

Not in my confusion.

Not in my grief.

Not in my wandering.

Not in my waiting.

And maybe that's why I still trust Him.

Not because life has been easy.

Not because everything made sense.

But because He has remained faithful through it all.