Honestly, it began pretty routinely. A new family had been attending our church for a few months. They had gone through our membership class, but only the wife applied for membership. Her husband had not.
When I pressed the husband on why he hadn’t applied for membership, I had my expectations of what his answers might be. After all, he had graduated from a nearby Bible College. He had moved into a part of our city with specific needs so he and his family could love and care for its residents. One of his siblings was a missionary and Bible translator. From someone so educated and invested in God’s work, I expected questions about the minutiae of our statement of faith or church polity. I was not ready for what I heard.
He wasn’t questioning our church. He was questioning his faith. As we talked, the conversation turned to the story of one of his friends. His friend experienced same-sex attraction and felt helpless, hopeless, and judged in the church. Ultimately, he had left the church and abandoned his faith. He just couldn’t get past a question that had become intensely personal: How could a God who loved him allow him to experience same-sex attraction, and then say it wasn’t alright to act on those desires?
Why did God allow me to have cancer? Why would God ask me to forgive? Why should I give generously? Why would a sovereign God allow so much suffering in the world?
All of these questions hinge on the same big question my friend had: Why should I trust God?
The Bible-college educated father seated across from me was asking a permutation of that same question: If God was good, how could he let his friend suffer and walk away from the church? If God was good, how could we trust a document like the Bible that seemed to callously condemn his friend to one form of suffering or another?
That conversation began a friendship and a years-long journey that centered around a single question: Why should someone trust God?
As a pastor and friend, I’ve heard some form of those questions more times than I know. I’ve heard it asked by people finding their faith, fighting for their faith, and ultimately leaving their faith. They might take different forms, but at their core they wrestle with the same question: Why did God allow me to have cancer? Why would God ask me to forgive? Why should I give generously? Why would a sovereign God allow so much suffering in the world?
All of these questions hinge on the same big question my friend had: Why should I trust God?
In the midst of suffering or a crisis of faith, the task of trusting God comes up often—from well-meaning friends, from pithy graphics on Facebook, or even from your pastor. But without a compelling reason to trust God, it all feels blind, weak, and hollow.
Now, I’m not saying you shouldn’t trust God. Trusting God is good. However, if we cannot offer a compelling reason for why we ought to trust God, that trust feels more like willful blindness. So, I want to ask you: Why should I, or you, or my friend who was hesitant to join our church trust God?
I’m not going to answer every question for every person as it relates to the Christian faith. But if you believe the Bible is true but struggle to trust God or some of the things he says in the Bible, then you can cling to the Bible’s encouragement: We trust God because he is good.
There is an inherent relationship between goodness and trust. Before my two- and five-year-old girls were born I prayed a prayer that sometimes feels like a mistake. I prayed they would be curious. I prayed they would think. I prayed they would question. God was more than generous in answering that prayer.
I’m grateful for what I hope it will mean for their faith and enjoyment of him someday, but in the day-to-day life of a father, that questioning, curious spirit causes countless moment of frustration. The simplest direction requires an explanation: Why is it time for dinner? Why can I not play with the circular saw? Why should I not wake up six times a night to play tea party with mom and dad?
But if you believe the Bible is true but struggle to trust God or some of the things he says in the Bible, then you can cling to the Bible’s encouragement: We trust God because he is good.
When life is calm and the situation is not urgent, I’m happy to explain and help them explore their world, but when they’re questioning the rule, “don’t run in front of that car,” I need them to trust. They need to believe in my goodness. I need them to believe I love them. I need them to believe I am good. I need them to believe I see and understand more than they do. I need them to believe all of these simple truths about our relationship so that when they in their limited experience of the world do not see danger, they can trust that when I seem to be keeping them back from good I am actually keeping them back from harm.
It’s the same with our divine Father. Psalm 111 ends speaking of the wisdom of following God’s precepts. Trusting obedience is the conclusion of this ancient worship song, but how do the worshippers get to this point of trust? The Psalmist reminds them that the truths I speak to my girls are infinitely truer of God.
God loves his people. He is “gracious and compassionate” (Psa. 111:4). From his grace and compassion, he has “ordained his covenant forever” (Psa. 111:9). He has bound himself to his people in love, and from his love he acts toward his people in love. “He provides food for those who fear him” (Psa. 111:5), because “he remembers his covenant forever” (Psa. 111:5). He worked powerfully on behalf of his people a land, giving them a land (Psa. 111:6), and when they wandered from him, he provided redemption for his people (Psa. 111:9). He is good, he acts from his goodness, and is far greater in power and understanding. He is glorious, majestic and enduringly righteous (Psa. 111:3).
Psalm 111 ends in a declaration of trust, because it reminds us God is great and good. The truth of which the Psalm reminded the ancient Israelites has been made abundantly clear for us today in the person of Christ.
In Romans 8:31–32, Paul reminds the believers in Rome:
What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?
To Roman believers facing “trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword” (Rom. 8:35), Paul says trust God, because he did not spare his own Son. Trust him because his abundant grace is good, and he has been good to you.
When asked how we know God is good, we point to Jesus on the cross. When creation is subjected to frustration and we groan with eager expectation, we take heart in our adoption and redemption, because “in this hope we were saved” (Rom. 8:20, 22–24). We know God is good in the midst of a broken world, because he did not abandon us in our suffering; he came descended into the mess and joined us. Not only did he join us, but in his resurrection he lifts us out of that mess into a hope that will one day be fulfilled at his ultimate coming.
Believer, in a broken world we trust God because he is good and in love acts out of that goodness toward us. None of that is new, and perhaps you are sitting there, reading, struggling to trust God, and frustrated with me for stating such straightforward truths. I get that frustration, but here’s the secret. Trust in God is not complex. We do not trust God by uncovering some hidden answer to all our “whys.”
Trust in God is much simpler than that. Trust in God, as the Bible presents it, is not about discovering something new, it is about remembering something old. Trust in God is founded securely in the goodness he has revealed through his covenant love, in the goodness he has revealed through his Son.
We know God is good in the midst of a broken world, because he did not abandon us in our suffering; he came descended into the mess and joined us.
If we know the root of trust, it will change our response when we come up against doubt. We may still ask God to show us why we or others suffer, but we will not be paralyzed in our faith until he answers. Instead, we have steps to take in waiting. We can remind ourselves of goodness by adopting the practices of Psalm 111. We sing of his goodness in the midst of the congregation. We proclaim his goodness, majesty, and glory. We hear others sing about who our God is in community and borrow the strength of their faith when ours is weak.
Believer, if you are struggling to trust, remember who he is in worship. Hold fast to him in community and song. He is good. He loves you. He has been faithful through all generations. He will be faithful to you yet.
