Question:Does God trust man?

Answered by: James Whiteside, who has been a volunteer with us since April, 2004.

Answer: Thank you for your question. My understanding is that trust implies uncertainty. You trust (or doubt) that someone is doing something, or going to do something, or is a certain way, when you don’t know for sure one way or the other. If you are standing right next to someone watching them do something, you don’t “trust” they are doing it. You know that they are. You can see it.

Christians widely believe that one of the characteristics of God is “all-knowingness” (aka “omniscience”). God is supposed to know everything. If that is true, He can’t trust or doubt anything. He simply knows. So, to answer your question, no, God doesn’t trust or doubt man. He simply knows man.

Question:If we aren’t supposed to trust our hearts/trust ourselves does this mean we must have self doubt?

Answered by: Ken Simmons, who has been a volunteer with us since August, 2016.

Answer: Hello, your question is one that many Christians need to ask. But rather than using the term self-doubt, self-evaluation is more of a positive attitude. Self-doubt seems to be saying that everything we think is in error.

To begin, everyone is born with an inner desire to trust. As you can see, without trust we would not be able to exist. We trust the floor where we stand, the chair where we sit, and the house where we live. If a person puts his hand on a wobbly chair before he sits down, he might doubt and then inspect the chair for stability. This is an objective way of looking at trust and doubt, but life isn’t as easy as just testing the strength of a chair, especially when uncertain emotions enter the mind. Emotions are God-given mental instincts that help us to relate to our surroundings. Emotions help us to love what is good and hate what is evil. The problem with emotions is that we have a sin nature, and this can cause us to follow our sinful desires.

In Psalm 37:3-6 David wrote, “Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday.” Notice that he said that God “will give you the desires of your heart.” If God gave a person all of the desires of their heart, without recognizing Him, that person would turn from the Lord and become self-serving. And worse, self-serving would lead to more sin and eventually destruction.

Psalm 37:3-6 is an excellent guide for a godly lifestyle. It divides this way.

1) “Trust in the Lord, and do good;” The most important part of trusting the Lord is for our salvation. Jesus Christ is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and we must trust in him and the fact that he paid our sin debt. And we receive salvation by grace through faith (Eph 2:8 & 9). Then, the best rule of life is to do what is right always, and many times it takes trust in the Lord to do right. Doing right is not always the easy thing to do.

2) “Dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.” This says to me, “be someone that can be trusted.”

3) “Delight yourself in the Lord,” And we should put Him at the highest level of priority—not as a demanding dictator, but as a loving Father.

4) “he will give you the desires of your heart.” When we trust God, and he trusts us, he will give us the desires of our heart, but he will also change the desires of our heart to be according to his will.

5) “Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act.” I don’t see the word “commit” as a command but rather as a volitional or voluntary act. It is an attitude of joy rather than a direct order. This is when God will act.

6) “He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday.” This is a statement of assurance that he is our loving Father and that we can fully trust him.

Isaiah 40:31 also says, “But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.” It is difficult many times to wait, but the reward will be worth it. Throughout the Old Testament and New, even God’s children would fail to wait because waiting on Him is a learning process.

Notice that both of these Bible verses have a priority of thought and life. God offers peace and contentment for his children who will first count Him (and His word) as the first person to follow. He should be at the top of every Christian’s list in life. Second on the list should be people. Notice what Jesus said in Matthew 22:37-40, “And he said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.'” This too has clear priorities for the believer. Jesus has offered a way of life that leads to peace of mind for those who have strong desires and for those who feel they have little or no direction.

It also needs to be said that when a person has strong desires, they need to be cautious about the decisions they make. Many people, including Christians, have made impulsive choices and then realized that they should have waited for assurance from the Lord. In 2 Samuel 11, David, from the top of his house, saw a beautiful woman named Bathsheba, and she became the desire of his heart. But rather than seeking God’s guidance in this matter, he fell to lust, committed adultery, and had a loyal soldier killed because of it. He hid his actions for nine months, and then God confronted him about it. It is my view that God would have rescued him from his sinful actions, and given him more than he desired (2 Samuel 12:7-8), if he would have humbled himself before the Lord and confessed his lustful desires. This is where he needed self-evaluation.

The desire of a person’s heart cannot easily be changed, and sometimes only the grace of God can change it. So, to answer your question, it is good, especially for a young Christian to have self-evaluation particularly when major decisions are being made. Colossians 3:15 adds to this by saying, “And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.” As a new Christian matures, he will have a sense of peace when faced with issues of trust, and self-evaluation will become instinctive because the new Christian will know Christ better in time.

I hope this answers your question, feel free to ask for any clarification.

By grace alone.

Ken S.