Having faith in God isn’t always easy because, as human beings, we innately doubt. Doubt is part of our fallen, sinful nature and became a part of our life the moment God brought us into this world. As each year passes, we experience many things in life that can cause us to doubt others as well as God. Things like losing a parent, being betrayed by a close friend, or not feeling fully loved by our spouse.

These are just a few of life’s difficulties that can cause us to become distrustful. And those incidents can lead to our doubting as to whether anyone in the world is actually trustworthy, because at one point, we trusted the people who we felt betrayed our trust. We trust our parents never to leave us, and when they do, our faith in them slowly diminishes. We trust friends to be close confidants, and when they break that trust, we begin to doubt those friendships. We trust our husbands to always love us, and when seasons come and it is difficult to see their love — or maybe they’ve even abused, abandoned, or been unfaithful to us — we question not only their love, but wonder if we can trust anyone. 

Frankly, humans are fallible so it’s almost impossible for us to faithfully maintain our trust at all times and in all ways. The reality is that we will fail others, and they will fail us. And because of past disappointments and betrayals of trust that we’ve all experienced in our life, it can be a struggle for us to fully put our trust in anyone — even God and His infallible Word.

As Christians, though, God calls us to trust in Him even in tough times, and to overcome these ‘trust challenges’ by the power of faith.

Let’s look at five reasons to trust in the Lord:

#1 — He Has a Beautiful Plan Orchestrated for Your Life

As someone in her twenties, I can say that there are many days when I feel confused about the direction of my life. I had created this excellent plan for my life that I was guaranteed to achieve because I knew this was God’s plan for my life. Yet, all those plans fell flat on their face, and naturally, I began to doubt.

God, if you say that you give your children the desire’s of their hearts, why didn’t you give me the wonderfully composed life I constructed for myself? 

And while He does say that He will give us the desires of our hearts, it is contingent on something else: “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart” Psalm 37:4 ESV

When we find our delight in the Lord, He will give us the true desires of our heart because it’s only when our minds are focused entirely on Him instead of on our own selfish desires and ambitions that we can really know what our deepest desires are. When we surrender our lives to God’s perfect will instead of insisting upon our own will, we find He changes the desires of our heart to be aligned with His perfect will. His desire and will is that we obey the commands that He gave to us for our good, for it is only when we live a life surrendered to obeying Him that we can experience the everlasting joy, peace, purpose, and fulfillment that He promises and longs for us to enjoy! When we surrender our lives to God’s will, we will discover that we can always trust in Him.

If you are struggling with the direction of your life or confused about why things aren’t working out the way you desire, I encourage you to seek after God and His will for your life. Ask Him to help you delight in Him above all else, and He will be faithful to do it! 

#2 — All Things Are Possible in His Name

God deserves for us to have faith in Him because He is capable of everything. Nothing is too far out of reach for Him to achieve. These are just a few of the scriptures that assure us of God’s almighty power and ability to do what appears to man to be impossible:

“But Jesus looked at them and said, ‘With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.’” (Matthew 19:26 ESV)

“For nothing will be impossible with God.” (Luke 1:37 ESV)

“Ah, Lord God! It is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you….Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is anything too hard for me?” (Jeremiah 32:17;27 ESV)

“I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.” (Job 42:2 ESV)

Even when it feels as if God hasn’t heard your prayers or responded to your heart’s desire, remember that the Lord is all wise and always loving, and He answers prayers in His perfect timing and in what we sometimes feel like are “mysterious ways.” 

#3 — Because He Is All Knowing

God answers our prayers in what sometimes feels like “mysterious ways” to us. That’s because He is all-knowing, and we are not. He is the potter, and we are merely the clay. The reality is we aren’t always capable of understanding the bigger picture that God is always working towards.

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9 ESV)

While we don’t always understand God’s timing or His ways, we can always trust in Him Whose character is always trustworthy. We can find solace in trusting in Jesus, Whose very name is “Faithful and True” (Revelation 19:11). He is the One alone Who knows all, and He alone knows what’s best!

#4 — He’s a Never-Ending Fountain of Mercy and Grace

“He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea” (Micah 7:19 ESV).

I love this Bible verse because of its absolute nature. Our iniquities are cast away for good. Unlike us, who dwell upon our shortcomings and lay awake at night feeling guilty for things we did years ago, the Lord has forgiven all our sins and does not dwell upon them. He has cast them far away from His presence through the power of Jesus’ cleansing blood that covers them. He likens it to casting our sins out to the depths of the sea where they can no longer emerge.

There are so many specific scriptures that testify to God’s mercy, grace, and love, and it can easily be said that the whole of the Bible is about those aspects of God’s character. Here are two of the multitude of scriptures:

“The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.He will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever. He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. As a father shows compassion to his children, so the LORD shows compassion to those who fear him” (Psalm 103:8-13 ESV).

“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:22-23 ESV).

Not only does God show us never-ending mercy by forgiving us of our sins and removing them far from us, but He also demonstrates His lavish love and never-ending grace by granting eternal life to all who believe in His atoning death and resurrection, by putting their trust in Him!

#5 — He Will Never Fail You

Unlike everyone else in the world, God can confidently say, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5 ESV). From your darkest valleys to your highest mountains, there is not a single point in your life where God was not and is not journeying with you. 

This truth reminds me of the poem “Footprints in the Sand.” It begins with two sets of footprints in the sand, but when difficult and sad times come into the narrator’s life, there is only one set of footprints. This causes doubt to fill the narrator’s mind: “I don’t understand why, when I needed You the most, You would leave me.” 

To which the Lord responded, “When you saw only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you.”

We can easily be like the narrator, instantly doubting the Lord’s presence when we no longer see Him. That’s what the world and our fallen nature has hardwired us to do: to doubt when we can’t see. But God calls us to look upon Him, the Unseen God, and believe! 

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1 ESV).

It is when we have faith in Him that we will be able to see that in every moment of our life — every mountain and every valley — and in all the moments in between, God was with us, He was for us, and He was sustaining us. And He Who has been faithful in the past will continue to be faithful in the future, whatever lies ahead!

There Are Infinite Reasons to Trust in Him

Every single moment in your life that God carried you and helped you through is another reason to trust in Him. And that makes an infinite list of reasons to have faith in God. 

This week, take time to remember God’s past faithfulness to you. Focus your thoughts on how God has demonstrated His loving kindness to you in both your victories and your failures. As you do, I believe you’ll be encouraged, knowing there are innumerable reasons to have faith and trust in our God — Who can move mountains or carry us over them!