The scene was subtle and laced with tragedy. A woman who has only known perfect love, peace and joy in the presence of her Creator is now in a conversation with a convincing Being causing her to question everything she’s known. Her name is Eve and she is standing at a pivotal crossroad that will dramatically effect the way she lives and interprets life from that point on.
If you are familiar with the Genesis account of Creation and the origin of humanity by design of God, this story will ring a bell. However, if you have never heard this or sit somewhere in the large range of opinions on the validity of the Creation Story, there’s something within this story that can still ring true for you. Following the plot line further, we see that Eve believes the Being depicted as a serpent in this story and as a result, chooses to disobey God (Genesis 3:1-7). What Eve received, however, was more than a suggestion to just throw off the restraints for a while, let her hair down and have some fun. She received something that produced an inner state that dramatically altered her perception of God and herself.
The Being, known as the devil, presented Eve his view of God which was that God told her not to eat the fruit because He was holding out on her. His accusation implied that God did not want her to have or become all that she was meant to be.
What happens to us internally if we come to believe someone is not intending the best towards us? Maybe through a real experience or just the projections of someone else about that person we lose trust in them don’t we?
What is trust anyway?
It’s interesting to discover that trust is synonomous with the word “faith”. If we trust someone we have faith in them. I don’t know about you but for me as a Christian this has been an area of condemnation. Coming to realize that in specific areas of my life I truly lack trust in God has always effected me on a deep level. If you have been raised in church like I was you probably experienced being encouraged (or reprimanded if you’re experience was that of negative religion) over and over to trust God. I felt like a failure every time I discovered unbelief and shame quickly reinforced my inadequacy in this area. Because of this I would apologize to God and promise to do better next time (that never really worked either).
I find it interesting that in human relationships we recognize trust is something that has to be built but in our relationship to God not so much. The truth is by the time we are adult humans we’ve usually formed at least a couple areas of mistrust towards God and others.
How we deal with our mistrust will make all the difference.
In my experience God is much more concerned about why we don’t trust Him than the fact that we are struggling.
He knows we don’t trust Him before we even become aware enough to admit it to Him. It could be that He has brought us to a situation where the lack of trust in us would be brought to the surface so that He can speak to it.
The disciples asked Jesus to increase their faith (Luke 17:5). If we remember that trust and faith are synonymous it can be said they asked Him to increase their trust in Him. They reached to Him rather than condemn themselves. Oh if we would just learn to do that with all our failures and weaknesses! He encourages us bring it all to Him and let Him heal it but we insist on trying to fix it ourselves and see very little progress.
If scripture teaches us that being full of faith is a fruit of His Spirit in us (Gal.5:22), and faith itself is a gift of His Spirit (1 Cor.12:9/Rom.12:3), why in the world do we try to work it up ourselves?
What scripture is saying is that we need to go to God with our mistrust, fear, and unbelief not run away from Him.
He knows we have trust issues and more importantly He knows why.
He longs to bring light and truth to the areas blinded by pain and lies. Once Adam and Eve told God what was happening He gave them a “covering” of love for where they had failed. Just like in their case, God calls to us in our hiding.
He calls us out into the open not to expose and condemn but to reveal and heal.
Trusting God more will never fully happen by our own effort. We can quote faith verses everyday but unless we let Him uncover the truth about our mistrust it is all empty rhetoric. The key is taking a first step with honesty which will automatically release an opportunity to learn to trust Him. If you’re dealing with a trust issue, it’s likely He’s already working within you.
Give your heart to Him. Open up and experience just a little more of the vastness of His love and care for you.
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