Trust, a topic I struggle with on a daily basis.  In fact, I wasn’t planning on doing a talk for our women's retreat this year but as I always say, "If I'm struggling then you all are going to join me."  This year was going to be my weekend to RETREAT!  God had other plans, however.  So, I spoke on the topic of trust this past September at our annual retreat.  I have struggled with trust ever since my kids became my kids.  As many of you know, my husband and I adopted 4 kids, ages 3-6 all at the same time.  I thought I had it figured out until my daughter got pregnant…again and again and again.  Now it is a daily struggle. Just when we thought we were done, we stepped up to raise two of our four granddaughters, (the other two live with their dad).  These days and at my age I have to rely on trusting God more and more. A song I sing with the girls, (now 9 and 10) is "God is Bigger than the Boogie Man.."  If I am going to believe this than I have to trust.  So, in an effort to share some of the information I learned while preparing my teaching, I am going to share on my blog for the next few days.  There is a lot of information so I'll take some time.  Also, if any of you disagree or have other scriptures that help you cope with this subject, please share.  Here goes.

First of all, faith and trust are often used interchangeably, as though they’re one and the same.  They are not.  In fact, FAITH and TRUST are two entirely different things.  Faith has been called “the substance of hope.”  Faith requires no evidence for belief.  The very nature of faith surmises that tangible evidence doesn’t exist.  On the other hand, trust is based largely on evidence that is real.  Trust is the core conviction of judgment based on knowledge, instinct, and experience. Consider this:  Imagine walking down a city street.  At one point, you step onto a well-marked crosswalk.  In doing so, you unwittingly place enormous trust in other people.  You trust the drivers of cars and trucks, presumably complete strangers to you to behave safely.  They are expected to obey the traffic laws.  You trust these drivers will be skilled and sober enough to observe you walking in the middle of the street and will come to a stop, thus allowing you to pass safely.  Based on volumes of evidence — including traffic fatalities which happen frequently in crosswalks, railroad crossings, and the like — placing this trust may be ill-advised.  After all, you know nothing about these drivers.  They could be drunk or distracted or sending texts and quite possibly not see you.  Should that misfortune happen, the end result could be a serious injury, or perhaps even death.  Nonetheless, we all step out into crosswalks anyway, usually without even thinking about the risk we are taking.  This is because trust is an every day part of life.  We have no choice than to trust other people. 

In my study of trust, I found that there are three components that make up a trustworthy person:  integrity, ability, and benevolence.  So, why do have I/we have a problem trusting God.  He has integrity.  He has ability.  He is benevolent.   Tomorrow, I will focus on integrity.  I hope you will join me.  

Thanks for reading.  KC..