Building Trust in God

It takes time, testing and training to develop trust.

A couple months ago, I watched a series called “The Men Who Built America” and it covered the careers of Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Carnegie, J.P. Morgan and Ford. All sorts of lessons can be learned from these giants of industry, but I want to focus on Carnegie’s first daring project—the construction of the Eads Bridge in St. Louis, MO.

When Carnegie set out to undertake this project, his goal was to demonstrate the strength of steel. It was the first building project that used steel as its main material. Nothing like this had ever been done before. After the bridge was completed, they needed to demonstrate the strength of the bridge so people would actually use it. To build trust in the bridge—and consequently steel—John Robinson borrowed an elephant from a passing circus and led it across the newly constructed bridge. Later, 20 steam locomotives were driven back and forth across its length. The result of these “tests” was that people not only had trust in the soundness of the bridge, but now they trusted in the strength of steel as a building material. The long term result: Carnegie made a vast fortune in the production of steel. It was used in everything!

God is much stronger than steel, and yet so often it seems we place more trust in a solid bridge than we do God. Imagine driving up to an overpass on the 405 freeway in Los Angeles. You see the structure—rebar and concrete—and you see the huge drop on either side. You slam on the breaks and come to a full and complete, non-California stop, taking deep calming breaths to slow the racing of your heart. Will today be the day the overpass fails? What if there’s an earthquake? What if a semi hits one of the supports? What if someone hits your vehicle and you careen over the side and plunge to your death? What if…?

If you’ve ever lived in a city, you know that coming to a stop on a busy freeway is the best way to cause a crash. It would be foolish to stop in the middle of traffic because you’re scared to drive on the overpass! And yet, what do we do when we face tests in life? Do we hit the breaks and hyperventilate? So often, we do! Why? Because we don’t trust God completely.

God is like a strong bridge, only no catastrophe or scheme of man can bring Him down. He’s proven Himself to be sturdy and reliable over and over again. Because we can’t see Him physically and because His plan doesn’t always make sense, we forget or we simply will not trust Him. We need to train our minds and hearts to Trust in the Lord, but how?

Here is my recommended training regimen: Read. Pray. Renew. Praise. Repeat.

Next up:  Phase One of training: Reading.

God be with you.