Trust. Admittedly, sometimes I’m surprised by my word for the year and even somewhat skeptical of its relevance. But as each December rolls around, I look back and am amazed to see the ways that it has woven through the tapestry of the days before. Since my last post that word has become a reverberating heartbeat marching through each day as the need and opportunity to rely on God in my circumstances and relationships have become numerous. And again, I am reminded that He knew where my path would lead and has prepared me accordingly.
Trust. Have you ever wondered why God has allowed certain circumstances into your life? Wondered why He hasn’t answered prayers? Why He hasn’t stepped in and stopped things from happening? I think we’ve all said “yes” to at least one of these questions. For some of us, these thoughts may be perpetual companions. If your trust in God has faltered or you’ve ever felt abandoned by Him, you are not alone. My relationship with trust has been long and varied, but it was through profound loss that I actually gained a deeper understanding of what it means.
Trust. To rely on the truthfulness or accuracy of someone. To believe in, place confidence in, depend on.
Trust is something that we develop in many different spheres – with family and friends, with employers and co-workers, in varying degrees with our leaders and governments, and ultimately with God. As we grow in these relationships, so should our level of trust. But what do we do when that trust is broken? When the confidence we have placed in someone is disappointed, damaged, or destroyed altogether? Especially when the one we have trusted in is God?
“Your baby no longer has a heartbeat.”
My trust in God had grown through many hardships leading up to that moment and I thought it was unshakeable, but those words at my first prenatal appointment for my 3rd child were almost my undoing. I was in total shock. We’d struggled through years of infertility, but had continued to trust that God would give us a baby in His timing. And He faithfully delivered – we had 2 precious miracle boys and had now been blessed with this child.
This wasn’t real. Couldn’t be real. How could a loving God have allowed this to happen? WHY had He allowed it to happen? I had longed, trusted, and hoped for this baby – and I was confident that all would be well! I trusted Him! Didn’t that count for something?
After the shock came intense anger. I was 17 when my mother passed away from her battle with cancer, yet my faith in God had remained strong – my wrestling with Him would come years later – and became stronger through it. I’d had years of dealing with complicated grief and wading through the aftermath of childhood abuse and trauma, then faced the crushing effects of infertility while holding tight to Jesus. But losing my baby, shook my faith to its core. I thought I had somehow “paid my dues” when it came to suffering. How much pain could one person be expected to take? How could I ever trust God again when I felt that He had betrayed me so utterly? What was the value of believing in someone if they failed you? I alternated between railing at God for His unfaithfulness and passionately questioning “why”?
What still amazes me is that even in my anger at God, He never left me. I was bereft, an empty shell of myself, disconnected from everyone around me by an invisible wall built by grief. In my fury, I had expected to feel God’s distance too, to feel abandoned, but I found the opposite to be true. In fact, God’s Presence never felt closer. There were times I felt like I could have reached out and touched Him. And regardless of the abuse I heaped on Him, He remained unmoved.
I know that God is able to handle our grief – in all of its varied and sometimes ugly expressions – and He does so with the utmost gentleness and graciousness. But, I also know that He does not want us to become stuck in our grief forever. His desire is always to draw to Himself, to comfort us, to heal and restore us. And at some point we have to make the decision whether we will allow Him to do that or not.
I started exploring and asking questions. When we place our trust in God, is it ever misplaced? Is He capable of breaking our trust? What does it actually mean to trust someone? What does trust require?
I found myself in the book of Job, feeling a kinship with him and reading passages that I had previously ignored. In the beginning, I felt justified in my position. I had accused God of betrayal and, much like Job did, I demanded answers. But in the same way that God answered Job, He answered me – even bringing me back to those very passages in Job 38-42 – and He challenged me to find evidence to support my claim. Evidence that went beyond my circumstances, my feelings, and the realm of my own understanding. Evidence that would condemn Him of unfaithfulness. So, I searched. I was determined. But the more I searched, the more empty handed I became. And in my searching, I discovered something I had lost – the fear of the Lord.
As the initial fog of grief began to clear, the Holy Spirit began to do His work. Breathing life into the shattered mess of my heart. Harnessing my turmoil and bringing my eyes back to the Word of God. I began to see and hear more clearly, glimpsing a side of God that I had never seen before. And I started to understand what Scripture means when it says that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and understanding.
We have to remember that if God dwelt within our “borders”, He would cease to be
beatrice giesbrecht
the God of the impossible.
What I discovered on this exploratory journey was not what I’d expected to find. I discovered that for trust to be broken, the one in whom trust is placed must break their promise, go back on their word, or act out of character. They must violate the confidence or expectation of reliability that has been placed in them. Considering that God’s Word says He is constant and unchanging – and if I choose to believe in Him, then I must have faith His Word is true – it would be safe to say that God can never break our trust. He can’t because that would be contrary to His very nature. And that is what faith is – choosing to believe in Him and in His unchanging nature, despite what we understand or our circumstances scream.
When I came to understand that trust can only be broken by one who is changeable, that’s when I recognized that my trust had been placed in a god of my own making. God on my own terms – one who lived within the realm of my own desires and expectations – and not the God who exists outside of time and space. The Eternal One, whose Love endures forever. The One who has promised to walk with us through fire and water, through the valley of shadow, and anything else the enemy or the effects of sin may send our way. The One who cannot go back on His Word.
A song that has always been incredibly impactful to me is Oceans from Hillsong UNITED.
Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders
Let me walk upon the waters
Wherever You would call me
Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander
And my faith will be made stronger
In the presence of my Saviour
Trust without borders. This song played on repeat for weeks after this revelation and I simply couldn’t get that phrase out of my head. And then an “aha” moment: Can we call it trust in God if we can’t hang on to it when we face what we don’t expect or understand? Is it actually trust if we place borders on it? The trust we cultivate in human relationships might say “I will trust you – until you cross this line or step outside this boundary. I will trust you until I can’t. There are borders to my level of trust in you.” But we can’t take the same approach with God. When we step into the realm of the Spirit and join hands with Author of our very breath, we can’t bring our borders with us. Because we have to remember that if He dwelt within our borders, He would cease to be the God of the impossible.
Our world is constantly changing. Ravaged by the effects of sin, things are put in motion that defy the good plan God had for Creation and cause pain and destruction. And this side of heaven, there will be many questions that will remain unanswerable. We will face disappointments. Hardships. Betrayals. Things we don’t foresee or understand. But these things don’t change Who God is or how He works. They don’t change the fact that He is still good.
Trust without borders. A place where there are no limits and we walk obediently wherever the Shepherd of our souls should lead. We trust, because we know His Love never fails. Because HE never fails. We trust, because we know He sees what we cannot. We trust, because He has promised to never leave or forsake us.
So, as I sit here today writing these words, current circumstances carving new furrows across my heart, I’m reminded of these truths. Reminded that I have chosen a life of trust without borders. And it’s that conviction that allows me to say…
Lord, I trust You. Even in this I trust You. Lead on.
Of Shattered Things 