SHEILA WALSH — Have you ever asked yourself, what does it look like to trust God?

How do we live in this crazy, shifting world and still stand in a place of absolute confidence that God is with us and for us?

It’s easy to say that we love God but I’m beginning to believe that trust is actually what love looks like, lived out loud.

Our culture waters down and generalizes the term “love” to refer to anything from ice cream to your children, but not so with the term “trust.” While you might still love someone who has deeply hurt you, you may not be able to trust him or her.

Of course, we exercise different levels of trust in various people and institutions—we might trust our auto mechanic with our car, trust our banker with our money, and trust our doctor with our health—but the essential meaning of the term remains the same. To trust someone means to place confidence in him or her to follow through on some expressed commitment.

The greatest challenge to living with absolute assurance in the goodness of God is that we still live on this planet. Check your zip code. If you don’t see “Pearly Gates,” then you’re still down here. You’re still right in the middle of a cosmic war zone. And that means people will wound you, people will fail you, people will let you down.

But not God!

God will never fail you. Only He is worthy of your complete trust…100 percent confidence.

Honestly, I’m still learning this lesson. After forty years of walking with God, insecurity, the enemy of trust, still rears its ugly head. It did so again a few months ago.

In 2014, Women of Faith, an organization I’ve been a part of since 1997 (women connecting with God and each other) made some changes. We brought in some amazing women as new speakers. In January we gathered for a retreat to enable us to get to know each other a bit, share our hearts, and pray for each other. I had a ridiculously busy schedule leading up to the retreat, and when I get really tired, I let my God-guard down.

We held the retreat at a site about two hours from Dallas, so I decided to drive down by myself instead of meeting everyone at our offices and taking the scheduled bus. I stopped halfway there to fill up with gas and read a text from our Vice President of Creative. He had a simple request: “As you’ve been part of the team from the beginning will you lead off the first session in the afternoon and just bring everyone up to speed on the history of Women of Faith?” He hadn’t asked me to explain rocket science. He’d made a simple, common sense request.

But do you know what took place inside of me?

I can’t do that!

I can’t stand up in front of these amazing women and speak!

I don’t think I belong anymore!

I’ve passed my shelf life!

I started shrinking internally and trust went out the window. I quickly found a quiet spot on the road, away from people and traffic, and had a heart-to-heart with my Father:

“Well, here I am again, Lord! I’m so sorry, but I feel overwhelmed. Despite everything You’ve done in my life, I still feel like the little girl in the wrong dress. I still feel it would be a relief to everyone if I didn’t show up. I still imagine people talking about me in little groups.”

I sat there for a while reminding myself of what I knew to be true rather than what I felt at that moment. One of my favorite scriptures is Proverbs 3:5-6.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.” (ESV)

I love The Message version,

“Trust God from the bottom of your heart; don’t try to figure out everything on your own. Listen for God’s voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; he’s the one who will keep you on track.”

Are you struggling to trust God in your circumstances right now? You are not alone! More often than not, for me, trusting means consciously dragging my will into line with the will of God, no matter what I feel. I make a conscious decision to stand on what is true and not on what feels true.

Mark Twain wrote, “Habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed down-stairs one step at a time.” So that’s my commitment for this year, to walk insecurity out of my life and trust God, one step at a time.