How To Trust God: 3 Keys

Have you ever wondered how to trust God?

I mean really trust him.

I’ve spent a lot of my life giving lip-service to trusting him. Preaching and teaching about it. Singing worship songs declaring my trust. Sharing about trusting God in small groups. And on and on…

However, when hard times have come, I’ve found three keys we can learn from today’s devotional verse.

Trust in the LORD with all your heart
And do not lean on your own understanding.

Proverbs 3:5 NIV

Trusting God means having a genuine confidence in his power, perspective, and promise. Let’s look at each of these.

3 Keys To Trusting God

To trust in the LORD with all of our hearts means a genuine confidence that he is powerful.

We are confident that he can:

• Answer prayer
• Work miracles
• Direct our steps
• Save us
• Speak to us

Imagine driving over a well-built bridge. It’s likely that 99.9% of us never even give it a second thought. Why? Because we trust it’s strong enough to hold our weight and give us safe passage across the water.

Trusting God is believing that he, too, is powerful enough to trust with our lives!

I remember helping my oldest daughter walk over an obstacle when she was a toddler. She was scared because she was unsure of what was on the other side. However, being much taller, I could see it was safe. My perspective allowed me to hold her hand and guide her safely.

Our relationship with God is the same way.

We can accept his perspective because he sees what’s on the other side of every fear, doubt, and obstacle in our way. But it’s hard to trust God when we doubt his perspective!

To trust God means believing his intentions for us are good. It means fully embracing his promises in Jeremiah 29:11:

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

Even when circumstances are difficult (like the typically unknown context of that verse), we can trust God wants what is good for us! His angle is never to do us harm—but to love, save, and lead us to his glory.

Here are just some of his promises:

1. God promises to give us strength (Ephesians 3:14–16).
2. God promises to be with us (Joshua 1:5; 9).
3. God promises to protect us (Psalm 91:2).
4. God promises us eternal life (John 3:16).
5. God promises to provide for us (Philippians 4:19).

We Don’t Have to Lean on Our Own Understanding

We are finite beings. Our power is limited. Our perspective is incomplete. Our promises go unfulfilled.

Thankfully, we do not have to “lean on” our own power, perspective, or promises.

How can you trust God today?