I was sixteen years old when I wrote my very first song.  I remember my mom often quoting the verse Proverbs 3:5-6 on trusting in the Lord, so I decided to write a song on trust. I have to admit, it was a cheesy song.  The chorus was simple:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart,

Lean on Him in every way.

Through life’s trials and life’s pain

He will help and He will save,

And when your soul is feeling down,

You can talk to Him in prayer.

You can always trust in the Lord,

Always trust.

As I have grown in my faith, one area that continues to be a struggle for me is fully trusting in the Lord. Trusting in the Lord “with all your heart” and “in every way” is definitely not easy, but it is also a command in Scripture, and in doing so, the Lord promises to direct your paths. So, why is it so hard to fully trust in the Lord? I want to give you a couple reasons in hopes that it helps us recognize how to gain a deeper dependence on the Savior.

1. We don’t really believe who God says He is.

Proverbs 3:6 says, “In all your ways acknowledge Him, and he will make straight your paths.” What does it mean to acknowledge God? The Hebrew word for acknowledge is yada’ which means, to know (properly, to ascertain by seeing). This first means we must have a proper and broad understanding of who God is. We need to recognize His many attributes such as that He is holy, just, and sovereign just to name a few. The way we do this is by meditating and studying Scripture. The more we meditate and study the Scriptures, the deeper understanding we have of who God is. But, it is not just enough to know about God. A true understanding of God’s character leads us to truly seeing Him. This is what the Psalmist gets at when he says in Psalm 34:8 “O taste and see that the Lord is good!” This type of relationship with God goes beyond facts, but reaches into a heart that longs for God. If we truly believe who God says He is, our relationship with Him will be transformed and we will begin to fully trust in Him.

2. We rely too much on our own strength

My two-year-old daughter is at the stage where she wants to do everything herself. Just the other day we were making her dinner and she insisted that she wanted to carry her plate and cup filled with milk all by herself to her highchair. While we offered to help her, she was very set on doing it herself and you can guess what happened; it didn’t quite go as she planned. That is a perfect picture of how we often treat God. We try to handle our own problems in our own way, thinking we can do it ourselves. Proverbs 3:5 clearly warns against this when it says “lean not into your own understanding.” This does not mean that we never use any wisdom and discernment in making decisions, but it does recognize that any wisdom and discernment we have is from God, and ultimately His ways are higher than ours. (Isaiah 55:9; James 1:17) The best posture we can have in trusting the Lord is one of humility. It is in this posture we can begin to rely less on our own understanding and more on God’s.

3. We Have a Lack of Obedience

Trusting in the Lord is active. What I mean by that is, trust involves much more than just knowing about God and believing Him, it involves obeying Him. One of the clearest examples of this is Abraham when he offered up his son Isaac. When you begin to study the context of that story, you realize what a big deal it was that Abraham was willing to give up his Son. This son was the way God was going to continue to bless his family, this son was the miracle Abraham had been waiting and praying to God for so long. We see that Abraham trusted that God would keep His promises in blessing him and his family so much that he obeyed God even when that obedience could potentially cost him his son. Maybe the reason we don’t fully trust the Lord is we are too scared to step out in faith, too scared to do something? Is there something God has laid on your heart that you have put off due to fear and lack of trust? The amazing thing is, once you take that step of obedience, that’s when God strengthens your faith and you begin to trust Him more.

I wish I could write back to my sixteen-year old self and say thank you for writing a lyric that emphasized trusting the Lord with all my heart and leaning on Him in every way. While I didn’t fully understand trust then, and I am certainly far from it now, I am thankful for how God is teaching me to trust in Him and showing me the barriers that keep me from doing that fully. This is a daily struggle, but the stakes our too high to not trust in Him. May we all recognize these barriers and desire to grow in our dependence on the Lord in this new year!