How to Still Trust God When Your Life is a Mess

God, what are you doing?

Proverbs 3:5-6

It’s difficult to trust God when you have no idea what He’s doing.

Sometimes, God’s will for your life is clear; finish school, get a job, get married, and have children. But other times you’re life is just a big jumble of poor decisions and spiralling disastrous situations that you can’t seem to pull yourself out of.

What do you do then?

How do you trust Him when…

How do you continue to believe in His promises when your marriage is falling apart or you don’t have a job or your children rebel against God?

Today, you may not be able to see God’s mercy amidst the fog of your life. When we decide to serve Christ, we make choices based on what we believe He wants us to do.

Related Post:

5 Ways to Know God’s Will for Your Life

But sometimes, bad things happen and we see our lives crumbling right in front of us. We are tempted to question God’s decision-making. We cry out:

“God, what are you doing?”

The ever-popular memory verse says:

“Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.” Proverbs 3:5-6

Let’s break down this passage:

Number 1:

Trust in the Lord with all thine heart.

Let’s be honest here.

A lot of times, we trust in the Lord with a piece of our heart. It’s easy to trust God for the small stuff.

We can easily trust God to wake us up in the morning because He’s done that a billion times.

But when it comes to trusting God for the big stuff, we pump the brakes and doubt that God will be able to come through for us.

That’s why God asks you to trust Him with ALL of your heart. What this means is that we trust in God’s, promise of protection, of His guidance and His timing. For EVERYTHING.

Whenever we feel trapped in the mess of life, we must place our trust in God and truly believe that He is going to work things out. We must be patient.

Related Post: How I Learned to Trust in God’s Timing

Number 2:

Lean not on your own understanding.

I believe that logic will carry a lot of Christians to hell.

Why? Because making a decision based on what we can see, always seems to be the wisest choice.

We have been taught at school that the logical thing to do is to gather up all the facts and then make a choice.

But our logic and God’s logic are completely opposed because God’s decisions are based on what He sees not on what we see.

Fortunately for us, God sees beyond the sphere of the here and now. He sees the future, fully comprehends our past and is present in our presence.

He sees and knows things we will never understand; therefore He allows things to happen for our own good.

When we decide to lean on our own understanding, we are essentially saying that we know better than God.

Hey! I get it, you’ve got your degree in (insert major degree name here), but no matter how smart you are, you will never be as knowledgeable as God.

God shakes up things. He will do things in your life that seemingly don’t add up.

He allowed Joseph to end up in prison (Genesis 39:20) and Esther to marry a heathen king (Esther 2:16). He allowed Daniel to be captured (Daniel 1:1) and Job lost everything (Job 1:9).

God’s way is not our way, and if we lean on our own understanding we will throw faith right out the window.

Our logic and understanding are based on what we can see, but faith is based on what God sees.

Number 3:

In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.

I think this is where a lot of us Christians struggle. ‘God, what do you want me to do?’

Trusting God comes with the understanding that we might not always know what decision to make. Sometimes, we are stuck at a crossroads with two paths in front of us, with no idea which steps to take.

God promises to direct our paths. This doesn’t always mean that we understand the path God wants us to take. All He is asking us to do is to trust Him. That’s it!

When we are about to make an important decision, we need to pray, trust and then move. Not move, pray and then trust God to fix our mess.

In everything, we must acknowledge that He is wiser than we are and trust Him to give us direction.

All things work out for good?

I always quote this text:

“And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28

Trusting in God means that we believe in His promise that everything is going to work out…eventuatlly. That everything will work out according to His plan.

It’s hard to believe that, when you’re life is a mess. All you can see in front of you is the mountain of things that just aren’t right.

We often want God to just fix things automatically but there is a purpose for every pain and for every waiting season.

God is asking us today, “Do you really trust me?” He is asking us to place our lives in His arms.

In His hands you are safe and you can be sure that your future will be brighter.

Prayer for Today:

Dear Father,

Right now, I can’t see my way out. I have made some questionable decisions in the past that have led me to this point and I don’t know what to do. Lord, I need your guidance. I am asking you to show me the way. Help me to walk in your light. I cannot do this by myself. Today, I place all of my trust in you.

Amen.

Thank you for taking the time to read this article today. If you have a question, query or story you’d like to share with me, please leave a comment or email me using the form below.