Trusting God

[Sudsy]

This thread is to share what trusting God means to you. Use scriptures when you can and give any examples of how this is done in your walk with the Lord. And any other related comments.

Reason for this thread - I believe there are many things that we are exposed to in the media of this modern world that can be very troubling and can make us anxious and are things that can rattle our peace of mind if we allow them to. Often these situations show up as threads in forums. What I believe is at the root of this is a lack of trust in God. You may see this differently.

For example - 1 Peter 5:7 says

Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you.

And here is a text that gives us instructions that ensures us of having a peace that is beyond understanding. Philippians 4:6-7 -

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

So, trusting God involves believing that what He says, He will do.

Do you agree that being anxious over anything going on in this world, is basically a lack of trust in God ?

[Valerie]

I agree that God is Sovereign over the affairs of man.
I do believe in those passages being the way to walk out our faith.

For "personal" matters this has helped me for decades:

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct your paths."

God did create us with human emotions, for us not to be ruled by but by Jos Word and the Holy Spirit, the Comforter we need not fret- we need to battle fear & worry with faith.

The news is troubling but will get worse before He returns which we look forward to- as we see it gets worse it affirms His prophetic words which told us of things to come. So ee trust His Providence

[Sudsy]

I think one of the problems with keeping aware of current events and politics and other worldly activities is that these can be temptations to take on anxieties that can have negative impact on our spiritual life. Discussions that result from following these things very often involve getting us believers into arguments amongst ourselves and fears of what is and/or may happen.

I remember periods in my life where I was quite unattached to most things going on in this world and lived a more peaceful life. As some might say 'ignorance is bliss' and to some extent I agree. My guess is that the Amish by their separation from the world's habits do have a certain degree of peace and lack of anxiety that we who follow the media don't have. They don't need to fight this battle of allowing the concerns of the world to be concerns we take on.

I also remember periods in my life where I was so involved in evangelism, Bible study, prayer, fasting and other spiritual practises where I didn't have time or interest in what was going on in the secular world. These were times where my life was truly abundant as Jesus promised. I suspect many here have experienced these times too.

So what does this have to do with trusting Jesus ? I would pose that trusting God is to not be anxious over anything and therefore to not get involved with things in life that are temptations to be anxious. Why do some Christians stay away from alcohol altogether and many other things that could harm us and yet don't regard the negative impact on following the news as also being a danger to our trusting God ?

Any thoughts on this ?

[Sliceitup]

I think one of the problems with keeping aware of current events and politics and other worldly activities is that these can be temptations to take on anxieties that can have negative impact on our spiritual life. Discussions that result from following these things very often involve getting us believers into arguments amongst ourselves and fears of what is and/or may happen.

I remember periods in my life where I was quite unattached to most things going on in this world and lived a more peaceful life. As some might say 'ignorance is bliss' and to some extent I agree. My guess is that the Amish by their separation from the world's habits do have a certain degree of peace and lack of anxiety that we who follow the media don't have. They don't need to fight this battle of allowing the concerns of the world to be concerns we take on.

I also remember periods in my life where I was so involved in evangelism, Bible study, prayer, fasting and other spiritual practises where I didn't have time or interest in what was going on in the secular world. These were times where my life was truly abundant as Jesus promised. I suspect many here have experienced these times too.

So what does this have to do with trusting Jesus ? I would pose that trusting God is to not be anxious over anything and therefore to not get involved with things in life that are temptations to be anxious. Why do some Christians stay away from alcohol altogether and many other things that could harm us and yet don't regard the negative impact on following the news as also being a danger to our trusting God ?

Any thoughts on this ?

I think the accessibility of news and social media makes it possible for us to know and be aware of so many more (distressing) things than we ever did before. I don’t think we were built with the capacity to process so much negative information. Even a hundred years ago you would have had to be dealing with an epically terrible time personally in order to have so much unsettling news constantly bombarded at you.

A person with so much terrible stuff in their life would rightly be depressed. It might even be a way that our body helps us to slow down, basically like when a fever makes you ill, but really the fever is sign to take care of another illness in your body.

But now, anyone can ingest that much bad news all before noon, every day, every week. And there are many news sites that are specifically designed to deliver you as much infuriatingly maddening news as possible. Social media can do the same thing.

I have seen this happen with my teens. I usually tell them they need to take a step back from their social media consumption.