Trust in God

“The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom should I fear?” (Psalm 27:1). 

As I reflect back on my life, especially my seminary formation, I can see the Lord in many places. One place especially is prayer. Prayer, to be brief, is something that I need. At times I like to joke that I'm addicted to prayer because when I go to prayer, I experience a lasting peace. When I stop praying or miss a prayer time, there is just a sense that something is missing in my life. The rest of the day feels wasted. 

There are many places where I can find the Lord in times of prayer, but ultimately, I know that I seek Him and that He listens to me no matter where I am. The trust that I need in the Lord is that He provides me with everything I need in the present moment. Anything in the future, I leave for Him to take care of because the present is where I experience the Lord. 

I find that prayer and trust lead me to a relationship with God. This relationship is growing, and there is a second part to this relationship as well: relationship with others. Now I have at times just made friends, but God wasn’t even thought of in the relationship. Then, it just crumbles. I have experienced this type of what one could call “shallow” friendship. By comparison, I have experienced the friendships where God is the center. The friendships with God as the center are the ones that I can see substantial growth in everything. These are the friendships I want to pursue and have these people as my friends. This leads me to trust these friendships, but first I need to trust in the Lord. 

Going to seminary and having a relationship with the Lord was definitely what I needed, but I didn’t know what it looked like to be a friend with God. I knew that God could see everything that I did, but I didn’t know that I could relate it to Him. Relating the good and the bad to God has helped me to not only gain trust in God. It has helped me to feel more at peace with many things. For example, I’m more at peace with my discernment. When I am studying at seminary and I feel it is getting very difficult to study, I just take a few moments to tell the Lord what I’m struggling with and why I feel like it is a struggle. Then I offer this struggle to Him. This usually helps me to overcome whatever I struggle with. 
This trust in God as a friend has helped me to see that I do not need to take everything on by myself. Instead, I can and should stop and offer it to God. Good, godly relationships with other people also help me feel like I’m not taking on all my problems by myself.

Trust in others starts first at birth. This trust can be categorized into four essential things. These four essential things, I have been told, are: feeling safe, seen, soothed, and secure. These four elements are provided for us by parents or guardians, but they can also be given to us by the Lord and our friends. The friendships that can help me to feel peace in the Lord are the ones that increase trust in those friendships. The alternative is I feel like I’m having to “white-knuckle” life or take on everything by myself.

 As I continue on in seminary formation, I am learning to trust in God and others. This learning to trust is a growth in love, especially love in God. I have found that my love, however small it is, is received by the Lord and that the love shown to me is greater than I could ever think or imagine. I now pray: “One thing I ask of the Lord…To dwell in the house of the Lord” (Psalm 27:4c)