Proverbs 3:5 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;” This episode talks about a habit you can develop to increase your trust in the Lord. It talks about a prayer I found online The Litany of Trust. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Increasing Your Trust In The Lord
Proverbs 3:5 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding;”
In this episode I would like to talk about a practice that I had been doing for awhile and just decided I would start doing again because I found it to be fruitful, so I wanted to share it with all of you. Right now we are living in a time of turmoil. This pandemic has been going on for a long time and there is little end in sight. Everyone in our country is struggling for one reason or another right now. Then we also have everyday life that is hard enough to live with. Being able to trust God through all of this is no easy feat. Trusting that there is light at the end of the tunnel is difficult on a good day, but what about when a relationship you envisioned would last forever comes to an end? How do you find trust that things will work out then? What about when your spouse of over 10 years is cheating on you and leaving you for someone else? How do you go on trusting that God will work all things for your good? What about all of the uncertainty in the world right now? How do you go about trusting in the Lord when you are unsure if you will have a job next month; if your loved ones will contract a virus you can’t protect them from; or if the business you worked so hard to build will have to close its doors forever? I know these are real fears for so many people right now. I know there are also a lot of people that are fearing the unknown. What if our kids don’t go back to school in the fall, what if church services are never the same, when can we hug our loved one again, etc. I know fear is prevalent is so many people these days. How do we trust God with all of this? How do we trust Him with our future, with our safety, with our financial security?
The practice that I have been doing for a number of months now is saying the Litany of Trust almost every morning. I had been saying the Litany of Humility and found that was a great practice. I thought I would search online to see if there was a different litany/prayer I could do to help increase other virtues. I found the Litany of trust. I think this practice is helpful for a couple reasons. First, we are told in the Bible that God really likes it when we want something so badly we are willing to ask him for it everyday. In Luke 18:1-8 Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought. And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’ “For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care what people think, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually come and attack me!’” And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?” Jesus is telling us not to give up, He wants us to keep asking our Father for what we need.
Second, I think saying the Litany frequently works because this prayer breaks down trust into many different parts. This is important because a lot of times we don’t know why we don’t trust, or perhaps we don’t understand the various ways that we hesitate to trust God. The Litany of Trust is broken down into two parts. First, it is asking God to deliver you from all the ways you may be scared to trust God. Ways that you are probably not even aware might be affecting your trust. These are thoughts that you may be having, but at a more subconscious level. Sometimes we know we are struggling, but are not sure how or why. There are 15 things in this prayer that you are asking Jesus to deliver you from.
From the Belief that I have to earn your love…Deliver me, Jesus
From the fear that I am unlovable…Deliver me, Jesus
From the false security that I have what it takes…Deliver me, Jesus
From the fear that trusting You will leave me more destitute…Deliver me, Jesus
From all suspicion of Your words and promises…Deliver me, Jesus
From the rebellion against childlike dependency of You…Deliver me, Jesus
From refusals and reluctance in accepting Your will… Deliver me, Jesus
From anxiety about the future… Deliver me Jesus
From resentment or excessive preoccupation with the past… Deliver me, Jesus
From restless self-seeking in the present moment…Deliver me, Jesus
From disbelief in Your love and presence…Deliver me, Jesus
From the fear of being asked to give more than I have…Deliver me, Jesus
From the belief that my life has no meaning or worth… Deliver me, Jesus
From the fear of what love demands… Deliver me, Jesus
From discouragement…Deliver me, Jesus
When I first read this prayer I was not aware that any of these had to do with me trusting in God. I was not aware that I needed to be delivered from any of these beliefs until I read them out loud. What about you? Do you need to be delivered from any of these beliefs?
The second part of the prayer has 14 things that you are telling Jesus that you put in His trust.
That You are continually holding me, sustaining me, loving me … Jesus, I trust in you.
That Your love goes deeper than my sins and failings, and transforms me …Jesus, I trust in you.
That not knowing what tomorrow brings is an invitation to lean on You … Jesus, I trust in you.
That You are with me in my suffering … Jesus, I trust in you.
That my suffering, united to Your own, will bear fruit in this life and the next …Jesus, I trust in you.
That You will not leave me orphan, that You are present in Your Church…Jesus, I trust in you.
That Your plan is better than anything else … Jesus, I trust in you.
That You always hear me, and in Your goodness always respond to me …Jesus, I trust in you.
That You give me the grace to accept forgiveness and to forgive others …Jesus, I trust in you.
That You give me all the strength I need for what is asked …Jesus, I trust in you.
That my life is a gift … Jesus, I trust in you.
That You will teach me to trust You … Jesus, I trust in you.
That You are my Lord and my God … Jesus, I trust in you.
That I am Your beloved one … Jesus, I trust in you.
Again, I had no idea how many ways we could trust in God, or how many ways we could be holding our trust back from God. Re-read this list. Where are you struggling to trust the most? What are you not struggling with, maybe you read some of these and you think to yourself that you are doing well with trusting that to God.
Both these lists have some pretty tough things on them. I know this and I am not telling you this to make you feel bad about all the ways you are failing to trust God. This is hard for all of us! We are all learning to trust. I am telling you this to let you know that you are not alone. To let you know that even though you may be struggling with some aspects of trust, you may be knocking it out of the park with other aspects of trust. Trusting God is a journey. God is not looking for our perfection, he is looking for our desire to be holy. We are not responsible for making our prayers fruitful, that is God’s job. God is just looking for us to show up again and again and ask him for His help. We are told in 2 Corinthians 12:9 that God said, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is perfected in weakness.” We can only succeed in trusting the Lord through His grace. He does not need us to know how to trust Him, we only need to ask him and His power will be perfected in our weakness. I challenge you to show up each morning for one month and ask God for the trust that you seek. Even if you do not think you have time for the whole prayer, even if you just pick one sentence, do something each day to ask God to increase your trust. I promise you, He will show up and come through for you, He ALWAYS does! I would love for any of you that take this challenge to reach out to me after the month and let me know how it went. Do you feel any different? Do you notice you are trusting more? Do some aspects of trust come a little easier for you now? You can send me an email to Catherine@findingtruenorthcoaching.com I know this habit of reciting the litany every morning has made a profound impact on my life and I know it will on your life as well if you give it a try.
Dear Heavenly Father I ask that you bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord we ask that you help us increase our trust in you. Lord we want to trust you please help us. There are so many ways in which we can put our trust in you thank you for sharing these ways with us. Lord you are amazing and we love you. We asked all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen.