Trusting vs Believing

In a recent Sunday service, Dr. Chuck Stecker, President and Founder of A Chosen Generation, delivered a message entitled A Relational God.  As I listened, I gained new insight into additional facets of a relationship with God.  I was so inspired and excited by it, that I want to share the basics with you in hopes that you, too, will be newly informed and inspired.

God created us for relationship…with Himself and others.  Often times we get a jaded mindset about how our interaction with Him should look.  We expect a perfect God to require perfect behavior – a perfect performance, if you will.  We misunderstand God’s perspective, then our enemy, the Devil, works to compound our misbeliefs.  It is no surprise to God that we are a work in progress.  But, often times, we’re like a tightrope walker who falls to the net below before reaching his goal – the opposite end.  After each fall, he begins again by climbing the ladder and starting across the wire.  He gauges his success by whether he can go a little bit further, or “fail less”, than he did on his first attempt.  We tend to adopt that mindset in our interactions with God.  We often restart our relationship with Him hoping to always do better or “fail less” than each last time.  God, of course, realizes that relationships  are constantly changing because we face various circumstances and are ever growing in our knowledge of Him and ourselves.   He prefers a constant, intimate walk with us, regardless of our messy life issues, as opposed to a continual starting over.

Psalm 37: 3-7 gives insight into making our relationship with God better.  The key words (arranging them to create a circle) are TRUST (at 12:00), DELIGHT (at 3:00), COMMIT (at 6:00), and BE STILL (at 9:00).  When we are finally reach that place of  stillness before God, we understand that He will always lead us right back to the cornerstone of trust.  We trust that He is who He says He is, that “He loves like He says He loves, and that He will do what He says He will do”.  We must trust this apply to us as well as others.  As we delight in Him, commit to follow Him, and take the time to be still and get to know His voice, we should end up trusting Him more than each time before.  Dr. Stecker pointed out that believing is easier for us than trusting.  I may be able to believe that a master tightrope walker can maneuver a wheelbarrow over Niagara Falls on a thin wire; but, do I trust him enough to get into the wheelbarrow and ride to the other side?  Trust is the telling factor in all our most important relationships; it adds depth and strength.  Without trust, our relationships are fragile and empty.

Our God is worthy of our trust.  He desires relationship with us in all of our circumstances.  As a perfect God, He does not desire a “perfect [relational] performance only a perfect effort”.  Where is your relationship with God?  Are you trusting or just believing?