How to Build Trust In Your Heart
I long to live in perpetual trust of the Lord.
To be so ingrained in faith and hope and Christlike-ness that trust pours from my heart at the first moment of hardship. The first moment of questions.
That when I flinch from the world’s agony, I will turn my face directly to His without wavering.
I know from the study of Scripture, the stories of the early church fathers, the testimonies of brothers and sisters in the faith—that trusting the Lord can truly become our default. It can be our habit. But only if we cultivate it.
The other day I was talking to the Lord about trust, because I struggle with this, and I came upon Psalm 9. In it, we’re reminded to repeat the story and we’re told that those who “know” Christ, trust Him.
The word “know” in this passage is the Hebrew “yada” which also means to acknowledge. Those who acknowledge Christ trust Him.
In fact, all through Scripture we’re told to repeat the story.
Tell the story to our children. (Deuteronomy 6:7), fill our homes with the story, tell it to those around us (Psalm 9:11), and tell it to ourselves.
For in the acknowledging we find direction (Proverbs 3:6) and in the acknowledging we learn to trust (Psalm 9:10).
The acknowledging builds the habit into us—seeps it into our pores and fills our empty places.
I’m not there yet. I still flinch inward a lot.
I flinch into myself when hard things come instead of flinching toward His face.
But I’m working at disciplining myself in this area. I want to trust so I want to acknowledge.
In real life I’ve been doing this—in conversations with friends and neighbors, in conversations with my children, in daily conversations with myself.
But today I want to do it with you too.
I want to tell the newest story God has been writing into my life.
I want to talk about miracles.
The miracles are only part of the story, of course. There was, and still is, a lot of hard.
But just as the hard is part of the story, so is the beauty and healing and unrelenting joy. The miraculous.
“I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart, I will recount all of Your wonderful deeds.” Psalm 9:1 tells us—and I am going to join in, blending my voice with the thousands upon thousands who have been singing His praises for generations.
The latest miracles in my life are easy to trace.
- I carried a child. I, who was once barren, gave birth. My body healed and I conceived and not only did a baby come—but she came well.
The goodness of the Lord.
- During my pregnancy all my blood work came back perfect. I haven’t had proper bloodwork since I was 18 years old. Over 16 years of unbalanced hormones—and now I had a doctor smiling and saying, “Everything is exactly right.” This made pregnancy, something that had always carried harshness in my memories, become something beautiful and fun for me.
The goodness of the Lord.
- My sister-in-law was due a week after me, so we got to do all of pregnancy together. This was infinitely precious to me. After watching her have five babies, this time I was doing it all with her! What surprise! What joy!
The goodness of the Lord.
- I was able to have Mary Katherine naturally, despite some complications. Despite almost no sleep for 48 hours. Despite hours and hours of hard contractions with less than a minute’s break between most of them. Despite an abnormality in my body. Still, we found a position, I had the best support and coaching possible, and she came during the last contraction before intervention would have happened.
The goodness of the Lord.
- I have a birth daughter. Friends, did you read that? Do you grasp it?
I. have. a. baby.
And she’s wonderful.
The GOODNESS of the Lord.
- I write my blog posts on the couch these days. On a phone—which I never thought I’d do—with a baby on my lap. MY baby on my lap. All those years—all those questions—all the wondering IF and WHY NOT? and Lord, you do see me at all? And here she is. So precious and perfect. Dimpled hands and soft skin and downy hair and, oh, I am overwhelmed.
I am tasting the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. (Psalm 27:13)
Not every story turns out this way.
Some seem better, some seem worse. But in every story you can find the finger prints of the Father—if you take the time to trace them.
I want to learn trust in a bone-deep way.
So I’m going to tell the story again and again.
And you, dear friend:
Whether you are in the season of hard or the season of miracles or trying to process the harshness that comes with the miracles at times—this is the secret to moving toward trust:
Acknowledging God.
Naming His presence in the harshness.
His miracles in the joy.
His open arms in the sorrow.
Wherever you are—take two minutes, friends. Just two minutes. Grab a scrap piece of paper or open a document on your phone or just speak the words aloud. Name the places you’ve known Him.
If you can’t identify anything right away, ask Him to reveal Himself to you. Go back in your memories as far as you have to and start from there.
Practice acknowledging Him and I promise, trust will build. It will grow and flourish.
And we will learn to flinch toward His face when the world serves us agony or fear or hardship—because we trust Him. And when the joy comes, we’ll be swept up in the worship of the One who is faithful to show us His goodness.
The goodness.
The ever blessed goodness.
The beautiful, breathtaking goodness of the Lord.