Learning About Trust

I used to think that trusting God came easily to me.

What a joke.

It did, for what I understood trusting God to mean. I could say "My God will supply all my needs" with full confidence and not a single ounce of doubt. But lately, I've been having a harder and harder time trusting God.

So what happened?

The lightbulb went on when I was talking with Charity this weekend. My problem has never really been with "My God will supply". I believe with all of my being that God is all-powerful and all-good, and that it is He alone who controls the universe. My problem has been with "all my needs".

See, for many, many years now I have defined "needs" as what I need to physically survive-food, clothing, and shelter. I've never worried that there wouldn't be food on the table. I've never worried that I won't have anything to wear. I've never worried that I won't have a place to sleep at night. I've never worried that there won't be enough money. It's truly, honestly never even crossed my mind.

But it hit me recently that "needs" is not just restricted to physical needs. You think I would have realized this a loooooong time ago, especially considering that I studied Maslow's hierarchy of needs freshman year of college. For those of you not familiar, Maslow's theory was that people's needs are like a pyramid. On the bottom are physiological needs-food, water, shelter. The next level was safety needs, both physical and emotional safety. Next is love/belonging needs, followed by the esteem needs (need for accomplishment, respect, etc.). At the top are the "self-actualization" needs, basically the ability to "be all you can be". His theory was that humans fulfill the needs in that order, and if a more basic need is being met, humans will ignore the "higher" needs until the basic needs are fulfilled. There are some flaws with his theory, but that's not the point.

The point is that for the longest time I have only defined "needs" as the bottom level, or maybe the bottom two levels, of the pyramid. My God WILL supply all my physical and safety needs. I've never had a single problem believing that.

I've realized that my problem is that my definition of "needs" is too narrow. I've realized that to really trust God means to believe that my God will supply ALL MY NEEDS-from the physical needs, to the needs for love and relationships, to the need to feel fulfilled. Trusting God means believing that HE and HE ALONE will fulfill every last need that I have.

My God will supply all my needs.

No doubts.

Trust.

So that's what "trust" means in the context of relating to God. Next question: Does that "trust" extend to other humans, or does trusting other people take on a different meaning that trusting God? Can you still "trust" someone while maintaining a bit of a guard because you know that they are human, and they will more than likely fail you? What do you do when someone loses your trust? Should you ever get to the point where you unconditionally trust somebody?

My God will supply all my needs...including answers to the big(ger) questions of life.