How Trusting God Helps Us Love Others

Coach said he’d let your son play in the game, but then he didn’t.

Your daughter’s best friend told everyone your girl’s secrets.

The Military promised you would get stabilization for your senior, but . . .

Everywhere we look, people fail us. Trust is broken. Promises aren’t kept. Whether by accident or outright ugliness, people hurt us.

So how do we help our children get back up, try again, and trust again?

One thing we can encourage them to do is to put their trust in the right place. People will fail them. If they are looking for perfect love, uncompromising faithfulness, and faultless strength in people, they are going to be let down. Too often, the reason we’ve been hurt by people is we are trusting them to do what only God can do.

Someone told me to shout,

and I asked,

“What should I shout?”

We humans are merely grass,

and we last no longer

than wild flowers.

At the Lord's command,

flowers and grass disappear,

and so do we.

Flowers and grass fade away,

but what our God has said

will never change.

Isaiah 40:6-8 (CEV)

God alone can be perfectly trustworthy. People, through fault or failure or because of frailty, can’t always follow through. God alone will always keep promises, never stop loving, and always tell the truth. He alone has the power to make happen what he said he would do. He alone has a perfect love that can be trusted and never fails.

We must put our trust in God first. Then he can help us to trust others and to forgive them when that trust is sometimes broken. Trusting God helps us maintain the right perspective on the fallibility of humans, including ourselves. It reminds us of the perfection of God and our responsibility to forgive as God forgives us for our wrongdoing. We will find new freedom in loving people because they don’t have to be perfect and in recognizing that they can’t ruin or change what God is doing in our lives. Ultimately, when we trust God, we can love others better.

PRAY

Lord, I have been hurt by people more times than I can recall, and that makes it hard to love others. Forgive me for trusting people in ways I should be trusting you. Help me to have a proper perspective on how much to rely on people and to teach that to my children. Amen.

TIME TO TALK

Conversation starter for kids: Provides you with questions and prompts to facilitate a time of applicable discussion with children to lead them towards knowing God and His Word more deeply.

Question(s): What have you been hurt by or disappointed by recently? Do you blame anyone?

Apply: As you and your kids talk about disappointments, check with each other on who you are trusting. Remind them that it is most important to trust God first and then he will help us know how to trust others, love, and forgive.

KEEP IT GOING

Related passages: These additional verses will help parents expand Scriptural knowledge and place on the armor of God’s Word to tackle each day. Swipe to read the passages today.

Psalm 56:11

Isaiah 26:3-4