Fear No Fear

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding;” (Proverbs 3:5, MEV). Trust issues are a red flag in ANY relationship. Trust is our marker for honesty, integrity, safety, and reliability. If we do not trust someone, or if we perceive someone as fundamentally untrustworthy, we don’t believe they can be honest, reliable, safe, or possess integrity. If you don’t trust someone, you are constantly suspicious of them. If you don’t trust someone, you are overly cautious about sharing your intimate real self with them. If you don’t trust someone, you end things before they are serious or you keep them at a very shallow level. If you don’t trust someone, you’re always looking DEEPLY to find out in what ways they are deceiving us or about to hurt us. This is what religious thinking is. It keeps the Lord at arm’s length. It keeps things superficial. Yes, you are saved but that’s it. You tread water until heaven. Or you’re always focused on what ISN’T working – from YOUR point of view. Or you’re looking for ways to prove that things aren’t the way the Word says they are – based solely on human evidence, thinking, and viewpoint. That is NOT how you trust. You have to START by being willing to believe what they say. THEN you need to work to cooperate with them, while believing them, so that they have the opportunity to show you that they DO mean what they say and that they ARE telling the truth and they CAN do what they say they can do when YOU do what you’re supposed to do. For example, they say they can give you two hundred dollars on Tuesday if you’ll go to the Blue Moon Cafe and sit in the booth until they arrive. If you don’t go, they can’t give it to you. If you don’t wait, they can’t give it to you. If you don’t reach out and take the money, they can’t give it to you. The Lord works the same way. His Word shows He can be trusted. His Word demonstrates His faithfulness. And His Word explains exactly what WE need to do to receive what He says He can give. Trust is a MAJOR part of that. We NEED to trust. We need to forget about past bad experiences with people. We need to be willing to overlook our trauma. We need to be willing to trust God based on what HE has done, not what anyone else has done or said. The Word is our textbook on WHY and HOW we can CHOOSE to place our trust in Him. And if we do, He is faithful and just and WILL respond. More than that, if we are trying but aren’t receiving, if we come to Him with an open heart and ASK, He will tell us where WE are missing it. He will correct our thinking, our actions, and our words through Holy Spirit so that we CAN receive what He has for us. THAT is how faithful, true, and GOOD He is! He WON’T EVER leave us hanging!