Trust in the Lord with All Your Heart.

Trusting God is something that is so hard to do, but so so so necessary. This is an area of my life in which I've been striving to improve for a number of years, and it was frustrating to me that I never really seemed to improve at it. After a while, I realized that I had an incorrect view of what it meant to trust God, and that was why it seemed to be such an exhausting feat.

To be honest, I didn't realize that my mindset in this area was wrong until I was talking about it with a friend who pointed out to me that if we ever perfected the art of trusting God (or if we ever perfected anything), we wouldn't really need to continue having a relationship with Him anymore. 

I've been learning recently that trusting God is more about bringing all of my fears, worries, thoughts, concerns, etc. to Him every day instead of holding onto all of them myself, and it's less about trusting Him and then proceeding to never worry about anything ever again. 

It's believing that He knows what's best for me.

It's believing that His ways are higher than mine.

It's believing that He hears my prayers even when I don't receive an answer right away.

It's believing that He is good even when life's circumstances don't seem to be.

It's realizing that I can't get through life alone.

Now that my mindset has changed in regards to trusting God, I've been significantly improving in this area recently, remembering that even though God already knows everything about me, He still longs to hear about my concerns as well as my joyous moments. In 1 Peter 5:7, the Bible reminds us to

"Cast all [our] anxiety on Him because He cares for you."

That's so comforting especially in this imperfect world that we live in. However, I've been finding that the more I'm relying on God, the harder it is for me to trust other people. God is so perfect, and so worthy of all our trust and praise - He is worthy of our whole lives! Inherently, trusting in God and not in people isn't a bad thing, but it can be if it gets to the point where I'm holding everything in and not trusting any of my family members or friends. Hebrews 10:24-25 says

"Let us consider how we may spur one another on towards love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another - and all the more as you see the Day approaching."

See, if I refuse to let people in and involve them in the struggles as well as the triumphs of my life, how will people know in what areas I need to be spurred on and encouraged? It's true that the Bible tells us that "it is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man" (Psalm 118:8), but at the same time it's necessary for us to find that balance of trusting in the Lord more than we trust in man. God calls us to live in community; He didn't leave Adam alone in the garden of Eden but He created Eve as a mate for him. It's also important to remember that sometimes God can use our friends and family members in a special way, by speaking through them when we have conversations, especially in those conversations when we have to humble ourselves, be vulnerable, and talk about the deep stuff that really matters.

Pretty much my point in all of that is saying that I'm currently working on finding that balance between trusting God but at the same time trusting and talking to people about what's really going on in my life. Don't misunderstand me though. I definitely do trust my family and close friends, but seeing as God is a perfect being, I hope you can understand where I'm coming from, and why/how I find myself having reservations when it comes to trusting imperfect humans. Like I said, it's all about remembering to trust in the Lord significantly more than we trust in humans.