Trust in the Lord

It is not a relationship if one person trusts completely but the other does not.

Heavenly Father demonstrates His trust by allowing us to choose even though we are likely to make mistakes.

The more we learn about God the easier it is to trust Him.

Sometimes the best way to learn to trust God is to choose to trust Him.

Don’t ask why, ask what I want you to learn.

That’s twice this session.

Trust is the foundation of all relationships. A threshold question to any relationship is “Can I trust the other person?” A relationship forms only when people are willing to place trust in each other. It is not a relationship if one person trusts completely but the other does not.

What is it when trust is non-existent or not bidirectional?

Each of us is a beloved spirit son or daughter of a loving Heavenly Father. But while that spiritual genealogy provides a foundation, it does not of itself create a meaningful relationship with God. A relationship can be built only when we choose to trust in Him.

Our choice is essential. Without it we limit how much we can receive from him. That’s the same failing that is preventing my children from receiving all that I would love to supply.

Heavenly Father desires to build a close, personal relationship with each of His spirit children. Jesus expressed that desire when He prayed, “That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us.” The relationship God seeks with each spirit child is one so close and personal that He will be able to share all He has and all He is. That kind of deep, enduring relationship can develop only when built upon perfect, total trust.

For His part, Heavenly Father has worked from the beginning to communicate His absolute trust in the divine potential of each of His children. Trust underlies the plan He presented for our growth and progression prior to our coming to earth. He would teach us eternal laws, create an earth, provide us with mortal bodies, give us the gift to choose for ourselves, and permit us to learn and grow by making our own choices. He wants us to choose to follow His laws and return to enjoy eternal life with Him and His Son.

Knowing that we would not always make good choices, He also prepared a way for us to escape from the consequences of bad choices. He provided us a Savior—His Son, Jesus Christ—to atone for our sins and make us clean again on condition of repentance. He invites us to use the precious gift of repentance regularly.

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Notwithstanding God’s trust in us, our relationship with Him will grow only to the degree we are willing to place our trust in Him. The challenge is that we live in a fallen world and have all experienced a betrayal of trust as the result of dishonesty, manipulation, coercion, or other circumstances. Once betrayed, we may struggle to trust again. These negative trust experiences with imperfect mortals may even impact our willingness to trust in a perfect Heavenly Father.

God demonstrates His trust by allowing us to choose and expressing confidence in our potential. He also demonstrates His trustworthiness by providing a way for us to escape from the consequences of poor choices.

Our living prophet, President Russell M. Nelson, has taught that the more we learn about God, the easier it will be for us to trust Him.

Sometimes the best way to learn to trust God is simply by trusting Him. Like “The Crazy Trust Exercise,” sometimes we just need to be willing to fall backward and let Him catch us.

We had trusted in the Lord, and things were supposed to work out. I had fallen backward, and it now appeared that no one was going to catch me.

One day the words “Don’t ask why; ask what I want you to learn” came distinctly into my mind and heart. Now I was even more confused. In the very moment I was struggling with my earlier decision, God was inviting me to trust Him even more. Looking back, this was a critical point in my life—it was the moment when I realized that the best way to learn to trust in God was simply by trusting Him. In the subsequent weeks, I watched with amazement as the Lord miraculously unfolded His plan to bless our family.

When we exercise faith and choose to believe in God without being compelled to believe it will have greater effect than when we do so out of desperation.

Each time we accept and act on an invitation, our trust in God grows. If we ignore or decline an invitation, our progress stops until we’re ready to act on a new invitation.

The good news is that regardless of the trust we may or may not have chosen to place in God in the past, we can choose to trust God today and every day going forward.