Trusting God in Times of Uncertainty

I wonder if all the trust issues in this world really begin with the act of forgetting God - forgetting that He’s been faithful before and He will be again, forgetting that He’s always provided more than enough, and when we forget we are giving a go ahead for fear to creep in.

I know this is true for me. Whenever I have forgotten God, worry rushes in. I used to believe that I trusted God and didn’t struggle with doubt, but then something hard happened. I didn’t know how to reconcile what I believed with my circumstances; they weren’t lining up. 

It’s a whole lot easier to trust God when our future seems clear and predictable than when we’re navigating a life we didn’t expect. Perhaps, yours is unraveling in ways you couldn’t have imagined and it has you wrestling through your faith and all of the things you’ve believed for years are being tested. 

These past few years have been full of uncertainty with a global pandemic that shut down our world, raging racial tension, all sorts of political unrest, and an unceasing war in the Ukraine. There’s been so much collective loss that it can be overwhelming to process all of the grief and to know how to move forward.  

Lately, as I’ve been reading through the book of Ruth I have seen so many lessons for us today on trusting in God. I have read this book hundreds of times and have never really considered the trust Ruth demonstrated - from her trust in Naomi into trusting God to provide their food and daily needs.

The story opens with Ruth, her sister-in-law and her mother-in-law Naomi, recently each widowed. Years prior Naomi and her husband had gone to Moab in search of food as their home country was in the middle of a famine. While there, her sons married Moabite women and within ten years both her sons and her husband unexpectedly died.

Noami and her daughter in laws were left to fend for themselves. So she decided to go back home and she sent her daughter in laws back to their families. But Ruth insisted on staying with Naomi and accompanied her back to Bethlehem. Even though Ruth was a foreigner in the land and far from her family, she trusted God to provide for her needs. 

Have you ever trusted God and not known what was ahead? 

In 2019, my husband Joe was diagnosed with a rare and aggressive cancer and I didn’t know if he would make it. My parents had both recently passed away and I was feeling orphaned when his diagnosis came. I wondered what I would do if something happened to him and I was left alone. We’ve served in ministry for the last 35 years working at several churches and home was, honestly, wherever we were called to serve.

This all worried me as I considered Joe’s suffering ahead and what could happen. The if’s haunted my thoughts, and I struggled with all sorts of worry. It was during this season that God showed me how my struggle with worry was rooted in distrust. My heart needed to be dismantled as I realized my trust was in temporary things and not surrendered to God. 

It was here God showed me how the remedy for my forgetfulness was to remember His faithfulness and love. After all, doesn't the sacred act of remembering make God more present in our lives? I have found that the more I surrender my worries daily to God, the more I trust Him, because worry and trust can’t occupy the same space within us - one always overtakes the other.

The more I dug into this thought, the more I remembered how God’s people have always been about remembrance. This daily act of remembering God actually dismantles our fear and worry. 

And perhaps this season of not knowing is what shows us just how much we truly need God. 

Years ago, Joe recognized I had trust issues and asked me if God had ever proven himself untrustworthy to me. As I pondered his question, I realized my struggle to trust God was actually rooted in an old wound. The more that wound began to heal, the more I trusted God, and the less I worried. God was doing his greatest work within me.

When we don’t trust God, we lose every memory of his past provision and faithfulness.

We might not know what God is doing, but we can be certain he is working in and through us. And although we may not know what is coming, we do know the One who does. 

Scripture for meditation

Then they lifted up their voices and wept again. And Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her. And she said, “See, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods; return after your sister-in-law.” But Ruth said, “Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the Lord do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you.”  And when Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more. 
Ruth 1: 14-18

Prompts for discussion & journaling

How have you struggled to trust God? 

How can you see God at work in your situation? 

How can remembering God’s faithfulness lead us to trust God more? 

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