Can I really trust in God?

Photo by Max Di Capua on Unsplash

Shortly after 4pm on a midweek evening, I found myself staring blankly out the kitchen window, wondering what on earth I would make for dinner. The baby was fussing on my hip, the toddler whining at my feet, and one of the older children shouting for help with homework.

It had been what common parlance would refer to as, ‘one of those days.’ You know the sort when it is indeed 4pm and you still haven’t managed to brush your hair. I stood there mindlessly eating handfuls of peanuts with my free hand (they are a particular weakness of mine) thinking to myself “Siobhan, you are an absolute mess.”

Thick in the trenches of parenting small children and balancing professional work, I’ve had my fair share of overwhelm over the years, and in quiet moments of prayer I’ve often thought does God really care about all this? Does any of this actually matter to Him? Do I really matter to Him? 

The short answer is yes. At that moment in time though, it honestly didn’t feel like it.

God as our Father?

It’s a fundamental and unique belief of Christianity that God is our Father. Perhaps we've heard it many times before but how many of us actually believe it? If we have grown up with an experience of fatherhood that wasn’t what it could have been, we still have an innate sense of what that experience should have been. In fact, we may feel it even more keenly because of the absence - we know what was missing. 

It naturally follows that if we can call God 'Our Father' then we are free to behave as his children - full of trust and completely secure. But somehow we might not feel like that really is true. What we may actually feel is that we’re only really lovable when we are absolute perfection. It can be hard to truly comprehend that God loves us and that we don't have to earn that love.

Put it like this, when I was filling my face with peanuts trying to ignore the absolute chaos of seven children around me at dinner time, after a string of sleepless nights, I didn’t feel like God was a presence I could curl up in and be comforted by. I almost felt like he might tut at me and tell me to pull myself together because other women have their act together; why don't I?

Comparison is a thief

I won’t flatter myself that I’m so special that there aren’t others who have days like this, but at that moment I did what a harried woman in my state should never do …compare. 

But what does comparison rob us of? The reality is there will always be someone better: someone more organised, more outgoing, more patient, more elegant, more beautiful, more eloquent … everything that we feel we’re not. So when we compare, we could very quickly fall into the trap of thinking that it’s only in the moments that we’re on our A game, that we’re actually worth anything. Comparison to others robs us of the trust we can have in Him. The trust that we matter to Him.

'Knowing it' versus 'feeling' it

Although it might not always feel like it, if you can come to see that your life really does matter to God, that you are in fact the ‘King's Kid’ as philosopher Peter Kreeft once said, it will have a consequence for you. You can come to have a sense of abandonment to God and can enter situations with a confidence that you won’t get on a human level. But that knowledge and trust in His fatherhood is something we need to constantly work at, especially when we feel like we don't really deserve it. So what practical things can help us?

Confide in Him 

Really talk to God in prayer. Have you ever found yourself praying but what you’re actually doing is just monologuing? Ruminating about all the things going wrong or the things you have to do? Then that’s what you actually have to pray about. 

If you're not used to mental prayer you might have to build up gradually, even five minutes to start. Make a list of all the troubles or things bothering you and actually take that with you to pray. Prayer is simply talking to God and having a relationship with Him and we can only have a relationship if we spend time with Him.

Remember you're not perfect

God loves us flaws and all, so we need to forget the idea that He only loves us when we've earned our worth. When Jesus picked his twelve disciplines, he didn't scour Galilee for the most impressive men. He didn't check their CVs or ask them to regale their greatest human accomplishments. Even when their head Peter denied knowing Him, the one question Jesus wanted the answer to was, “do you love me?” These were human beings prone to mistakes, and so are we. 

Show yourself some compassion

If we're not perfect then we need to acknowledge that we will get things wrong so that’s where self-compassion comes in. God isn't angry with us yet sometimes we worry about everything we've done wrong, and that any minute now, He's going to bring out that list of our failings and shortcomings to take us down a peg or two. No. If God can show us compassion and mercy then we need to show it to ourselves.

In his book Friends of God, St Josemaría Escrivá urges: “reflect on your utter dependence upon God, and be filled with gratitude and the desire to repay the favours of a Father who loves us to the point of madness.”

God has made us to be His children. We really can depend on Him and it would be madness to believe otherwise.