By any measure, the world feels like it’s teetering. Tariffs are sending global markets into freefall. Natural disasters are escalating in both scale and frequency. Political polarization has gone from background noise to an all-out culture war. Even the economy—once the last bastion of stability—is beginning to wobble under the weight of inflation, debt and economic uncertainty.
In moments like these, “trusting God” can feel like a weak prescription for a system-wide collapse. The phrase itself has been dulled by overuse—printed on tote bags, stitched onto throw pillows, tucked into church sermons as a kind of spiritual fine print. But for many people quietly unraveling under the pressure of chronic instability, the idea of trusting God isn’t sentimental. It’s survival.
“I’ve been studying the topic of trust lately,” says Lysa TerKeurst, bestselling author and founder of Proverbs 31 Ministries. “And what I’ve realized is that I attach a great deal of my trust in God to my desire for things to turn out like I think they should.”
It’s a startling admission but one that resonates with anyone who has tried to hold on to faith while watching their expectations fall apart. TerKeurst doesn’t offer easy answers. She offers something better: an honest reckoning with how our theology is often tangled up with our desire for control.
“I want the goodness of God to compel Him to fix things, change minds, prevent hurt, punish the bad and vindicate the good on my timeline,” she says. “I want the goodness of God to make people who do hurtful things say they are sorry and then act better, do better, be better. I’m desperate for Him to make circumstances good in the timing that seems good to me.”
But faith, she says, is not about demanding God conform to our timelines or expectations. It’s about learning to surrender the outcomes we can’t control—which, in the end, is most of them.
“That’s not faith,” she says. “It’s actually a sign that because I still don’t understand what He allowed to happen in my past, I’m struggling to trust Him with my future.”
This is where a lot of people get stuck—not in belief but in trust. You can intellectually assent to God’s existence, even His goodness, and still live in quiet suspicion that He might not show up for you when it matters. TerKeurst frames it as a daily question: Can I trust Him enough to really start surrendering the outcomes—the way my life will go?
That kind of trust, she says, doesn’t come from slogans or emotional hype. It comes from living out the tension of Proverbs 3:5–6: “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.”
“I know these verses,” TerKeurst says. “But I want to live these verses. And in order to do that, I must acknowledge God’s version of making my path straight most likely will not line up with what I expect.”
In other words, faith isn’t about predicting God’s movements. It’s about trusting His character—especially when you don’t understand His timing.
That kind of trust doesn’t emerge in a vacuum. It requires depth. TerKeurst shares a metaphor from her own life that illustrates this in stark detail.
After a storm, she came across a massive oak tree that had been uprooted. At first glance, it looked like a freak accident. The tree was tall, wide, mature—what you’d expect to withstand high winds. But as workers began to cut it down, the truth emerged.
“The roots were so shallow that they lifted out of the ground as well,” she recalls. “And the tree was hollow on the inside.”
She was stunned. What brought down something so seemingly immovable?
One of the workers gave her a blunt answer: “Shallow roots and ants.”
The shallow roots, he explained, were a result of convenience. Trees in sprinkler-fed yards get enough surface water that they don’t grow deep. And when a storm hits, that surface-level nourishment isn’t enough to hold the weight.
The ants were more insidious. They found an injury in the tree, exploited the moisture and began wearing down the wood from the inside. It didn’t happen overnight. It happened slowly. Invisibly. Until the structure gave way.
“I could feel the life lesson coming in hot,” TerKeurst says. “When life looks like I expect it to and feels relatively good, I am tempted to get satisfied with where I’m at and not continue to grow deeper and deeper in my faith.”
We’re often content with surface-level spirituality—church on Sundays, a sermon clip on Instagram, a favorite podcast on the drive to work. But if those things are substitutes for actual intimacy with God, they won’t hold up under real pressure. When the storm comes—and it always does—we find out just how deep our roots go.
That’s when a second truth kicks in: even strong-looking people can be hollow on the inside.
“The hollowing out of the tree and the tree having shallow roots happened slowly, daily, one compromise after another,” she says. “I am a lot like that tree.”
But she doesn’t stop there. The answer isn’t to fear the next storm or to hide every spiritual injury. The answer, she says, is to practice daily surrender.
“Instead of trying to control things beyond my control, I want to make the choice to surrender them today to God,” she says. “And then surrender again tomorrow. And the next day too. Refusing to control is an act of building more and more trust with God.”
It’s not glamorous. It’s not quick. But it’s the path to something real.
“Each time I have doubts and fears about God’s goodness, I will bring these to God and let His truth refute them,” she says. “My job is daily obedience to God. His job is holding and handling my future.”
In a culture wired for control, trusting God can feel like giving up. But in truth, it’s the most powerful move you can make. It’s a rejection of the illusion that peace comes from certainty. It’s choosing to believe that God is who He says He is—even when the news scroll doesn’t improve.
“Trusting God is holding loosely the parts of my life I want to hold most tightly,” TerKeurst says. “Is it easy? No. But is it the pathway to the peace I long for? Yes, it really is.”
In the end, the world may not stabilize anytime soon. But your soul can. Not because the winds have died down but because your roots have grown deeper.
Title: How to Trust God When Everything Feels Unstable
URL: https://relevantmagazine.com/faith/how-to-trust-god-when-everything-feels-unstable/
Source: REL ::: RELEVANT
Source URL: http://www.relevantmagazine.com/rss/relevantmagazine.xml
Date: April 7, 2025 at 08:20PM
Feedly Board(s): Religion