Trust

"Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in me."
John 14:1 NKJV

Trust is a hard thing for anyone.  I can count only a few people in my life whom I would truly put my trust in.  It's not our habit to put our complete trust in someone that we've just met.  Why is that?  Well, from my experience it's because I do not want to leave myself vulnerable to being hurt by someone I hardly even know.  It's a huge deal to open ourselves up to someone and trust they won't let us down or fail us in some way.  This is strange to me, because that's just what I've done to others myself.  How many people have I hurt who put their trust in me?  Yet, I refuse to allow that to happen to me.  That doesn't mean it hasn't, I've been hurt by others more times than I can count.  Each time I end up telling myself NEVER AGAIN!  It's a pretty lonely feeling out there on a island when you open yourself up to someone.  My first subconscious thought is usually "How long before you let me down?"  By this logic, it's a wonder we ever develop any type of relationships.
How does this relate to how we see Jesus?  Well, I think it's pretty easy to carry our human thoughts and fears over to our relationship with God.  Can we trust in someone we've never met?  How about trusting in someone we've never even seen?  See where I'm going with this?  The idea of a "relationship" with Jesus was a pretty radical step for me, at times it still is.  Proverbs 3 gives us a good example.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding;
Proverbs 3:5 NKJV

How many times have we put this level of trust into one of our human relationships?  Yet God is asking us, as his children, to put our complete and utter trust in him.  The closest comparison I can find to this is a parent child relationship which, ironicaly, is the relationship that we share with our heavenly father.  Make no mistake, when we are talking God, we are talking about Jesus as well.  They are one in the same.  So, our relationship with God IS our direct relationship with Jesus.  So, that brings us back full circle to the very first verse in John 14.  When we believe in God, we believe in his one and only son Jesus as well.  If we put our trust in God, we do well to trust Jesus as well.  Unlike those human relationships that we have often avoided over fears of getting hurt, our God promised to never leave us or forsake us.  Poeple around us may change, but Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever.

~Scott~