In order to be obedient to the Lord, you must trust Him. Trust is difficult because it constantly crosses your own understanding. “Trust in the LORD with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight” (Proverbs 3:5–6).[1] We must open our hearts to a relationship with God that is truly built on trust. Unfortunately, we have developed some wrong images in our relationship with Him that were born out of times of not trusting Him.

Often you can see these wrong images on a natural level between parents and their children. For example, it is important to instruct a two-year-old child not to run out into the street. Although the child cannot understand why, it is too dangerous a lesson to let him find out for himself. So parents must lay down the law and say, “From now on the commandment in this household is that you do not run out into the street or there will be consequences.” A parent is really saying, “Look son, trust me. I love you and want you to be safe.” But in their immaturity, children react. Consequently, by the time they grow to be teenagers, they are ready to get away from their parents if an adversarial relationship has developed. It is an unfortunate thing.

I feel like we have done that same thing in our relating with the Lord. We have a trust deficit. Sometimes our Father has to put His foot down, and say, “I can’t explain it to you now. Just do what I say.” As a result, we perceive God as a tyrant issuing commandments, rules, and regulations that we do not understand, so we view His instruction and discipline negatively. Thus, there is a buildup of many things that God has done for our good that can bring us into an adversarial relationship.

So we declare in faith that we drop that old negative thinking. I want us to trust our Father and recognize that honestly everything He has done of His dealings in our lives and His discipline has had one motivation: to do us good and to bring a blessing into our lives. Say in your heart, “God’s motivation is to bless me. His desire is to do me good. Everything that has happened historically between Him and me was done out of His drive to impart a blessing to my life.” That attitude is part of this trust.

To enter into a deep trust of our Father is to enter into a healing of our spirits. Part of trust is being able to let your guard down. But you do not let your guard down around an adversary. So we need to enter into a trust that enables us to open our hearts and lean upon Him in a way that we never have before. We are not responsible for our own well-being. We can trust Him, and this trust of the Lord will heal our hearts. It will give us a whole new relationship with Him.

God wants to bring about an impartation of real happiness into our lives that we have never experienced before. We draw this reality into our hearts. The Greek word pistis is generally translated as “faith,” but it can also mean “confidence, faithfulness; to be persuaded, come to trust.” We have worn out the word faith. So now let us come to trust Him instead.

[1] Unless stated otherwise, all Scripture references are from the New American Standard Bible 1995 (NASB1995).