What Does The Bible Say About Trusting in God?

— Esther Richards

To understand what the Bible says about trusting in God, we're going to look at three questions. And we're going to look at different stories and passages in the Bible to help us answer these three questions. So those questions are,

1. Is God trustworthy?

2. What does trusting God mean?

3. What happens when we trust in God?

Let's unpack the first question.

#1 - Is God trustworthy?

There's a story in the Bible in the book of Judges, about Gideon and the Midianites. So the story happens over chapters six and seven. Basically, in chapter six, we see God telling Gideon that Gideon is going to be the one to rescue the Israelites from the Midianite army. So the Midianite army is camped around where the Israelites are staying. They are invading that land, they are ruining crops, and just causing a lot of issues for the Israelites and the Israelites need to be rescued. And God is calling Gideon to be the one to lead the efforts to defeat the Midianites. Gideon asks God lots of questions. And God gives Gideon various signs to show that this is what He's asking him to do. So Gideon hears God and agrees that he is going to be the one to lead the fight against the Midianites. And we read in Judges chapter seven verses one to eight.

“Early in the morning, Jerub-Baal (that is, Gideon) and all his men camped at the spring of Harod. The camp of Midian was north of them in the valley near the hill of Moreh.

The Lord said to Gideon, “You have too many men. I cannot deliver Midian into their hands, or Israel would boast against me, ‘My own strength has saved me.’ Now announce to the army, ‘Anyone who trembles with fear may turn back and leave Mount Gilead.’” So twenty-two thousand men left, while ten thousand remained.

But the Lord said to Gideon, “There are still too many men. Take them down to the water, and I will thin them out for you there. If I say, ‘This one shall go with you,’ he shall go; but if I say, ‘This one shall not go with you,’ he shall not go.” So Gideon took the men down to the water.

There the Lord told him, “Separate those who lap the water with their tongues as a dog laps from those who kneel down to drink.” Three hundred of them drank from cupped hands, lapping like dogs. All the rest got down on their knees to drink. The Lord said to Gideon, “With the three hundred men that lapped I will save you and give the Midianites into your hands. Let all the others go home.”

So Gideon sent the rest of the Israelites home but kept the three hundred, who took over the provisions and trumpets of the others. Now the camp of Midian lay below him in the valley. ”

-- Judges 7:1-8 (NIV)

So God has asked Gideon to do a few seemingly bizarre things. Firstly, he's asked Gideon to reduce his army from 32,000 men to just 300 to fight this huge army that's causing them all of these problems. Not only this, but God asks Gideon to do this in a strange way through multiple different instructions and instructions that we don't necessarily understand when we read them. So Gideon heard these and also may have been confused as to what God was asking him to do. Nevertheless, he trusted that God knew what He was doing. And he did it anyway. And he ended up with just 300 men in his army. We see in chapter seven, from verse 9 to verse 12.

“During that night the Lord said to Gideon, “Get up, go down against the camp, because I am going to give it into your hands. If you are afraid to attack, go down to the camp with your servant Purah and listen to what they are saying. Afterward, you will be encouraged to attack the camp.”

So he and Purah his servant went down to the outposts of the camp. The Midianites, the Amalekites and all the other eastern peoples had settled in the valley, thick as locusts. Their camels could no more be counted than the sand on the seashore.”

-- Judges 7:9-12 (NIV)

This description gives us quite an impressive idea of just how many people are in this opposing army of the Midianites. It says that there are so many camels in the army, that you could no more count them the same way that you can't count the amount of sand that's on a seashore. That's a lot of camels! And Gideon now only has 300 men. And God says to him, if he went and looked at the army, he would be encouraged to fight. I don't know about you. But if I saw an army that big and only had 300 in my own, I wouldn't feel that encouraged to fight. So how does God keep his word and still encourage Gideon despite what he's seen? Well, that happens in verses 13 to 15. And it says this,

“Gideon arrived just as a man was telling a friend his dream. “I had a dream,” he was saying. “A round loaf of barley bread came tumbling into the Midianite camp. It struck the tent with such force that the tent overturned and collapsed.” His friend responded, “This can be nothing other than the sword of Gideon son of Joash, the Israelite. God has given the Midianites and the whole camp into his hands.” When Gideon heard the dream and its interpretation, he bowed down and worshiped. He returned to the camp of Israel and called out, “Get up! The Lord has given the Midianite camp into your hands.””

-- Judges 7:13-15 (NIV)

So God is true to his words. And as soon as Gideon came back from looking at how many people there were in the Midianite army, he overheard this conversation between these two men, and he was immediately encouraged, and he immediately praised God, prayed and worshipped God, and called out loud for everyone to get up, proclaiming that God had already given the Midianite army into their hands despite the fact that they hadn't even fought yet. So that is how encouraged Gideon feels after going and seeing the camp and God showing him this conversation and this dream. We've got an army of 300 men ready to fight an army that's so big, it can't be counted. Yet God has said that the army of 300 will win. So can God be trusted? We read in verses 16 to 23 what happens next.

“Dividing the three hundred men into three companies, he placed trumpets and empty jars in the hands of all of them, with torches inside. “Watch me,” he told them. “Follow my lead. When I get to the edge of the camp, do exactly as I do. When I and all who are with me blow our trumpets, then from all around the camp blow yours and shout, ‘For the Lord and for Gideon.’”

Gideon and the hundred men with him reached the edge of the camp at the beginning of the middle watch, just after they had changed the guard. They blew their trumpets and broke the jars that were in their hands. The three companies blew the trumpets and smashed the jars. Grasping the torches in their left hands and holding in their right hands the trumpets they were to blow, they shouted, “A sword for the Lord and for Gideon!”

While each man held his position around the camp, all the Midianites ran, crying out as they fled. When the three hundred trumpets sounded, the Lord caused the men throughout the camp to turn on each other with their swords. The army fled...”

-- Judges 7:16-23 (NIV)

So Gideon's army won. The Midianites ended up fighting each other and fleeing to all sorts of different places. The Israelites then pursue them, it says a bit later on, and Gideon's army won just as God had promised. This is a great example in the Bible of how God is trustworthy. To such an extent that we don't even need to understand the things that God is doing and the ways that he is working, yet we can trust him despite that. God comes through for us every single time, we can definitely trust him. He is trustworthy.

And there are countless other stories in the Bible of God being trustworthy and giving seemingly odd instructions as well. Just like how God tells Noah to build the ark. Noah trusts him. And the flood does happen and God is trustworthy. And when God instructed Moses to go to Egypt and save the Israelites, Moses didn't want to do it. It seemed like such a huge, massive task yet God was trustworthy, and he saved them. All of these stories all throughout the Bible, there are countless, God is a God who keeps his word, he comes through, he has your back and he is completely trustworthy.

#2 - What does trusting in God mean?

So to see what the Bible says about this, we'll go to the book of Philippians in the New Testament, chapter four, verse six, which says this,

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. ”

-- Philippians 4:6 (NIV)

I really like this as a way of explaining what it means to trust God, that when something feels like it's going wrong, rather than being fearful and anxious about things, we can go to God, we can pray, and we can ask Him to help us. But we do that in a way where we bring thanksgiving to him. And a great example of this is in the book of Job in the Old Testament, where Job is afflicted and has really horrible things happen to him. And one of the first things he does is worship and speak the truth about who God is.

So we can do that, we can present our requests to God, we can go to him with the things that we have because he is trustworthy, and we can tell Him and ask Him for what we need. And it means that we don't need to be anxious, it's easier said than done. But, indeed, we do not need to be anxious because we can bring what we have to God and we can trust him. There's also a verse in Proverbs, that explains what it means to trust God, in chapter three, verses five to seven. And it says,

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight. Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and shun evil. ”

-- Proverbs 3:5-7 (NIV)

So again, this is saying that we should trust that God knows what he's doing better than we know what we're doing. When it says to not lean on your own understanding, this is talking about having a conscious and intentional dependence on God. It's not about just trying to get through in life and praying when things go wrong. But it's deciding that God knows what he's doing more than we do, that we are going to lean on him in everything, just as we may lean on something physical to support us, like a tree or a wall or something like that. And we have to acknowledge God, observe him, and get to know him as we live. And as we trust in Him, it's a daily thing that we get to do.

The analogy of a bike

I recently got married, and I went on a honeymoon with my husband, to Croatia. And we hired these electric bikes to cycle around one of the little islands that we were on that day. And that was just really, really steep hill. And the path was very rocky, it was chalky and uneven and really bumpy. And there were these teeny tiny little rocks. And every time I would brake with my bike the wheel would skid to the side and I'd feel like I was about to fall off. And I'm not very graceful on a bike. And I was not being very brave at all. And I found the whole thing quite stressful. Just on that path, the rest of it was great.

And I had a moment where I was cycling down this hill, and I was so tense and I was so afraid. And I just took a breath. And I said just relax. I relaxed my shoulders and my arms and tried to not hold on quite so tightly to the handlebars. And I found that once my body had relaxed, it was a lot easier. When I decided that the bike was built to go on this sort of terrain, that I needed to trust the design of the bike, trust that the wheels would stay upright as long as I kept pedaling, it became so much easier and a lot more enjoyable. And then, soon after that, we hit the tarmac, and everything was a lot easier.

But even as that happened, I was thinking about this talk and thought it actually was a really helpful analogy of what it means to trust God, that things can be scary and stressful. We can be afraid that we're going to fall and that we're going to hurt ourselves. Something bad is going to happen to us. But we don't always have the opportunity or the option to stop and get off the bike so to speak. But just as I trusted that the bike wheels were designed well that they would take me where I needed to go, that they would keep me upright, we can trust that God knows what he's doing. God is capable.

When we relax and lean into God and what He has for us, the journey doesn't necessarily get any less bumpy. But if we can be less fearful, and we can be less anxious, we can trust in Him and it becomes more enjoyable. And sometimes in our lives, we do hit the tarmac when we're cycling, and it's much easier to go through. But life isn't always like that, sometimes the road is bumpy. But when we lean into God, when we trust in Him, we know that we are always going to be safe, we are always going to be protected, and looked after. And you'll be pleased to know I did not fall off my bike. And that analogy leads me on to our final question.

#3 - What happens when we trust in God?

So many, many parts of the Bible that tell us what happens when we trust in God. And one of them is the next verse in the Philippians passage that we read earlier in chapter four, which is verse seven, which says,

“And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. ”

-- Philippians 4:7

And later on in the same chapter and verse 19, it says,

“And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus. ”

-- Philippians 4:19

Now, these two verses don't mean that we will get everything that we want whenever we ask for it. But what it means is that God provides us with what we need when we need it. Again, it's about trusting that God knows better than we do when it comes to timing and leaning on him rather than ourselves. But what happens when we trust God is that He provides and that we find peace. In Isaiah 26, verses three and four, it says,

“You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, the Lord himself, is the Rock eternal. ”

-- Isaiah 26:3,4 (NIV)

Again, this verse is telling us that when we trust in God, we will find peace, we will be kept in perfect peace is what it says and this is the kind of trend or the theme of what the Bible says about trusting in God that when we trust in Him, we will find peace. Again, in Isaiah chapter 12, verse two, it says,

“Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. The Lord, the Lord himself, is my strength and my defense; he has become my salvation. ”

-- Isaiah 12:2 (NIV)

Again, it says that when we trust, we don't have to be afraid, because God is our salvation, God is our defense, and He will keep us safe. And we will have peace.

Trusting in God is about trusting that he is the one that saves us. It's about knowing that there's nothing we can do to tick enough boxes, or to do things right or do things the good way, that will earn our salvation. God is the one that saves us. God is the one that keeps us safe. God is the one that brings us peace that will actually last. He is the one that we can trust in everything forever because he never changes. That's what it means to trust God. He is our salvation. He is our defense, He keeps us safe, and He will provide us peace.