Rachel Gibson

What happens when we put our trust completely in God?

Trusting God isn’t just about our words, but our actions, writes Rachel Gibson.

The 14-year-old girl sat quietly and alone in the corner of the room. “God, I give you my life; everything is yours. Wherever you ask me to go, whatever you ask me to do, I’m yours.”

Words were never more sincerely meant, but did she comprehend what a life surrendered to God might look like?

Many a person has spoken similar words. It is our heart’s desire to live fully for God. There are so many ways we come to this declaration, but do we ever truly expect to need to sacrifice everything, or indeed anything?

I was curled up on my bed, weeping, feeling lost and sorry for myself when those words were echoed back to me along with the question, “Did you really mean it?”

My husband and I had been so sure of the plan God had for our lives. We were happy and largely fulfilled in what we were doing. We were coming to the end of our adoption application process and were gearing up to become a daddy and mummy and couldn’t have been more excited! And then our world flipped upside down.

As it turned out, God’s plan was very different from what we expected – and that change was scary. And at that moment the realisation came that what God wanted us to be prepared to give up was everything – the future we wanted and prepared for, and possibly even the adoption itself. I was a wreck.

But at that moment the still, small voice I love came and asked me the question that defined a moment in our lives: did I really mean it? Was I really prepared to give it all to God? Every long-held hope and dream? My security? Was I prepared to trust him with my future even if it meant giving up the one I thought I wanted? And I had to ask myself where my confidence to go forward into this unknown was found.

Confidence. What does that really mean, to be confident? The dictionary says it means to have confidence in oneself – but from personal experience that can be a bit of a disaster; we mess up and it’s quickly lost!

At that moment in my room I found my confidence was not in myself, was not in a plan, was not even in having a specific expectation of what God wanted – but instead, it was where I had placed it all those years ago. I had meant those words then and I did mean them still. My trust was in God and I would go where he led, and it would be the best because he would not lead me astray.

“For you have been my hope, Sovereign Lord, my confidence since my youth,” (Psalm 71:5).

Everything changed for me at that moment. I was no longer afraid but was confident everything was going to be OK because I knew ‘God’s got this’, whatever this was. And he has. Our landscape has changed, and by God’s grace our family has grown to include the most gorgeous little boy, and we are happy and confident that we are where we are supposed to be and serving him.

In Jeremiah 17:7-8 it says, “But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green.”

I don’t know where you are, what God is asking of you – but I know when we put our trust completely in God we can be confident. Our paths may be different and we may not even be able to see what’s next, but it will be good.

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