There are few things scarier than trusting another person. Whether it's with your favorite going-out shirt, a secret you've never told anyone or watching over your pet goldfish while you're gone for the weekend, I think we can all agree that we have, on some level, trust issues.
For me, the hardest thing to trust someone with wasn't my goldfish, mostly because the only fish I had starved themselves. No, the hardest thing to trust someone else with is the state of my love life. For some bizarre reason I am under the impression that I know what's best for my heart. I know what it wants, and apparently I know how to get it.
Wrong.
I say “bizarre" because my track record would make you laugh out loud. I have absolutely zero reason to believe that I am capable of successfully locking down a flourishing relationship, yet I just can't. give. it. up.
Time after time, I find someone I like, I talk myself into thinking they're exactly what I'm looking for, I put everything I have into something that can't even be defined as a functioning “relationship," and (surprise surprise) I leave disappointed, hurt and a little more jaded than I came into it.
This may be bold of me to say, but I'm willing to bet I'm not the only one who has this leave-it-to-me complex. Am I?
Why do we, as twenty-something women think that we have enough figured out to handle something this huge on our own? Why do we think we know enough about the world, about ourselves, about the boy we met at that party to take on a task as daunting as our love lives by ourselves?
Wouldn't it be amazing if there was someone who knew better than we did? Wouldn't it be mind-blowing to think that we didn't have to take this on ourselves, that there was someone out there who already had it figured out for us?
“Cast all your anxiety on him because He cares for you." —1 Peter 5:7
“The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you. He will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid, do not be discouraged." — Deuteronomy 31:8
I know what you're thinking. “Oh, this is going to be one of those articles." Now before you leave this page and start your Netflix binge, hear me out. I'm not quoting those bible verses because I believe we should be able to read them, and just like that, all of our worries will disappear. I'm quoting them to remind you, along with myself, that God doesn't expect us to go wholeheartedly into this “trust" thing.
Christ knows that asking us to trust him is tough request to make.
If God didn't know this, the Bible would be one page, with one sentence saying “I did it." He would be able to tell us that He did everything He said He would do, and know that we will trust him 100 percent. But the bible isn't one page. It isn't one sentence. The bible is a collection of stories, prophecies and testimonies to reassure us that we can trust Him. It's a million moments strung together of God saying "Look what I did, you can trust me," and "See how I conquered that? That was for you, you can trust me."
You can trust me.
And he isn't just talking about the small stuff. He's talking about the big stuff, too...the love stuff.
I'm going to be brutally honest here. Sometimes I think God doesn't know what I want. Sometimes I think he's going to send someone my way that I am not attracted to at all, that isn't fun or doesn't make me laugh, that is a total bore. I get worried that He'll send that guy to me and after I say HECK no, He'll say “Well that was the one I had for you. I guess you're out of luck now."
That's crazy, I know that, but sometimes it can be so extremely difficult to trust someone you can't see with something you take so seriously. But here's the thing: God knows exactly what we want. Psalm 37:4 tells us that if we delight in the Lord, he will give us the desires of our hearts. Notice how it doesn't say he will give us the desires of our mothers, or the desires of our youth group leaders—the desire of our hearts.
He knows how you like to laugh, He knows what you find attractive, and He knows the dreams you have for your life. He knows these things because he made you. He put those desires in your heart, and if you can just trust in Him, He will pull through. If we can just trust that He will bring the right person at the right time, our lives will be better than we could ever manage on our own.
I am fallen, I am selfish, I am incredibly naive when it comes to what I want, and I think it might be worth a try giving someone else a shot. Don't you?
