3 Counter-Intuitive Signs That Show Your Trust In God
Trusting God is hard. I know from experience that sometimes those who don’t know or follow God in any real way can look at those who do and think “I wish faith came as easy to me as it does to them.” The truth is it doesn’t come easy.
Growing in our faith and trust in God is difficult. But the only way we can know something is difficult is by trying to do it. To experience doubt, frustration, and feeling like you’re not faithful enough is a sign that you actually care about your spiritual condition.
Let me explain.
Instead of getting down on ourselves for our struggle with faith, my hope in this post is that you would be encouraged by it. If you have experienced these thoughts it means you’re on the right track. Below are three counter-intuitive signs your faith is headed in the right direction.
1. Forgiveness and grace towards others is a battle for you
We all love the idea of forgiveness and grace. We know we all make mistakes and can be selfish, so we know that forgiving others is a good thing. Because Christ has offered us grace and forgiveness, in response to how God has treated us we should do the same towards others.
It’s a great concept until we actually have to do it. Extending forgiveness is easy in theory, but everything is easy in theory.
Wrestling with trying to forgive someone means you are attempting to emulate Jesus. Extending grace is not our natural inclination, so of course it is hard.
If grace and forgiveness isn’t a battle for you it means it’s not something you think about. It’s hard to forgive those who have hurt us, but we only realize how hard it is when we do it.
2. You sometimes question what you could do with the money you give away
How we handle our resources says a lot about where our trust lies. Our level of generosity is tied to how much we trust God. Jesus himself told us that how we handle our resources determines the direction of our hearts. God was abundantly generous towards us, and being generous towards others is a reflection of that.
If you never question what you could do with the money you are generous with, it likely means you’re not nearly as generous as you could be.
There are times when I look our budget and think of the things we could do or buy with what we give away. When we are generous. it is hard for all of us not to think of what we could do with what we are giving away.
If you ever feel guilty about these thoughts, it’s a sign that you are trusting God with your money.
A good rule of thumb when it comes to generosity I once heard is that your level of generosity should cause you to miss out on some things you would have otherwise liked to have. This isn’t about having a poverty mentality and giving everything you own and have away, but it is about feeling the effects of your generosity in some way.
This is what sacrifice is; giving up something meaningful. If you sometimes struggle and wonder what you could do with what you give away, it’s a sign that you are being generous.
3. You get frustrated at the lack of answer to prayer
Most of us would say we want to be better at prayer. When we think about it, we get discouraged that we don’t pray as often or as much as we think we should. But sometimes prayer is hard because prayer is frustrating. We pray for good things that God seems to do nothing about.
Whether it’s for the restoration of a relationship, for someone far from God to experience the love of Christ, or direction on a decision that you want to honor God in; it’s discouraging when God isn’t answering our prayers in a tangible way.
By now, you may know what I am about to say. It is a good sign if you sometimes get frustrated by the apparent lack of answer to prayer. This likely means you have been committing yourself to pray.
Remember, if we pray for something once and then get upset that God hasn’t done anything, that’s not on God. Prayer isn’t about making God our genie who grants us our requests. More than anything it’s about spending time with Him and remembering our need for Him.
Prayer can be hard, but we only experience it’s difficulty if we commit to doing it. While it’s not fun to be frustrated by unanswered prayer, it shows that we are pursuing something that honors God and is good for us.
Trusting God can be hard
Generally speaking, trusting someone to do something involves risk. If they don’t come through you will be let down. This means trusting can be hard because we are placing our fate in someone else’s hands.
Trusting God is the biggest example of this. Trusting God involves doing things where the outcome is out of our control, and we don’t like not being in control.
Be encouraged; to struggle in your faith implies you are putting forth an effort. We all have doubts and questions and discouragements. Following God in the midst of these things reveals our desire to trust Him. It’s not always easy, but He is always good.
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