If you’ve ever second-guessed a decision you made, you are in like company. Henrietta Mears, the founder of Gospel Light, was asked at the end of her life if she could do anything different with her life, what would it be? She said, “Believe God more.”
Have you looked forward to something for a long time, then when you finally got it, it wasn’t at all what you thought it would be? Did you feel deceived? You had faith in the object, not in the one it came from. “Our belief in God is not blind faith. Belief is having a firm conviction something is true, not hoping it’s true,” saidMax Lucado. Is it any surprise some of us have a hard time trusting God? When bad things happen to good people, we second-guess God’s love for us.
How big is your God? There is no middle ground when it comes to believing God—either we operate in fear or faith. Proverbs 3:5–6 says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him and he will make your paths straight.”
Believing God’s plan is best is a crisis of the will. We are deceived when we feel we can’t trust God with our situation and don’t believe He can help us. Doubt is the opposite of belief. The only anecdote for unbelief is to accept the truth. Those who believe God can put their faith in Him in any circumstance. Once we understand God’s character, we can trust him and believe He loves us. In spite of immobilizing circumstances, we can choose to move gracefully and freely through trials.