Bible Questions

Faith and Spiritual Growth

How do I trust God when life is difficult?

Loading Proverbs 3:5

Biblical trust is not a feeling you generate. It is leaning your weight on what God has revealed about himself, especially when your circumstances suggest otherwise. Scripture builds trust the same way every time: by remembering what God has already done, telling him the truth about what you feel now, and obeying the next small thing while the outcome is still hidden.

01

God's answer first

Let God's own words set the terms before the study begins.

The passage that answers this

Loading Proverbs 3:5-6

Trust here is set against leaning on your own understanding, which is exactly what difficulty tempts a person to do. The promise is direction, not explanation.

Read these with it

Loading Psalms 56:3-4

David does not say he is never afraid. He says that when he is afraid he will trust, which makes trust a decision made inside fear rather than after it.

Loading Isaiah 26:3-4

The mind stayed on God is kept in peace. Isaiah ties trust to attention, which is something a struggling believer can actually practise.

Everything below flows out of these words. Read them first, then let the study explain them.

02

Why we ask this

Trust is easy to affirm in principle and difficult to practise at three in the morning when the numbers do not work, the diagnosis has not changed, or the person you loved is not coming back.

The question is often really two questions. Can I trust God's power, and can I trust his goodness towards me specifically. Most people find the second one harder, and Scripture spends more time on it than we expect.

It is worth noticing that the Bible never asks for blind trust. It asks for trust that is informed by history, by , by named acts, and finally by a cross. Christian trust always has evidence in its hands.

03

Historical context

Written by
Solomon, king of Israel, writing as a father instructing his son
Written to
A son being trained in wisdom, and through him the covenant community reading Proverbs as a household
Written because
Solomon writes to shape character before crisis arrives, teaching trust as a daily discipline rather than a reaction reserved for hard seasons

is framed as a father speaking to a son, the standard form for wisdom instruction in the ancient Near East. It was meant to be memorized and lived with long before the son ever faced a real trial, which is important, because the trust described in verses 5 and 6 is not presented as an emergency response. It is presented as a habit built over years of ordinary obedience.

The setting also explains the shape of the command. Solomon does not ask his son to trust blindly or to suppress his own thinking. He contrasts trusting the LORD with leaning on 'thine own understanding,' which was a real for a young man in a kingdom full of political and commercial calculation. The proverb assumes a mind that reasons, but asks that mind to submit its conclusions to God rather than to trust them as final.

Read this way, is less a promise that trust removes difficulty and more a description of where wisdom actually begins. The son who trusts in this manner is promised directed paths, not an easy road. That distinction matters for anyone reading the verse while life is genuinely hard.

04

Verse by verse

Loading Proverbs 3:5

The command has two halves that work together. Trusting with all the heart is not partial or occasional. Leaning not on one's own understanding does not forbid thinking, but forbids treating one's own conclusions as the final authority.

Loading Proverbs 3:6

Acknowledging God 'in all thy ways' extends trust into ordinary decisions, not only crises. The promise is direction, described as paths made straight, which is guidance over time rather than an instant answer to a single question.

Loading Proverbs 3:7

Solomon repeats the warning against self-confidence in almost identical terms, showing this is the central danger the whole passage is written against. Wisdom in one's own eyes is the opposite posture to trust.

Loading Deuteronomy 8:2

Moses tells Israel that itself was the teacher, revealing what was already in their hearts. Difficult seasons function the same way for trust that Proverbs commends, testing whether it is real before it is needed.

Loading Psalms 9:10

David ties trust directly to knowing God's name, meaning his revealed character. Trust is not generated by willpower but grows out of familiarity with who God has shown himself to be.

Loading Mark 9:24

The father's prayer shows that trust and doubt can be present in the same moment and spoken honestly to God. Scripture does not require trust to be free of struggle before it counts as real.

05

What Scripture says

Trust means leaning, not understanding

The Hebrew verb pictures leaning your body weight onto something. The parallel line, lean not to your own understanding, does not forbid thinking. It forbids making your comprehension the load-bearing wall. Trust is what you do when the explanation has not arrived.

Trust is grounded in remembered acts

You will remember all the way which the LORD your God led you. Israel's trust was continually rebuilt by rehearsing history rather than by summoning emotion. This is why so much of the Old Testament is narrative. It is evidence for a future crisis.

God's character is the object, not the outcome

They that know your name will put their trust in you. Trust follows knowledge of who God is. If your trust rests on a predicted outcome, it will collapse when the outcome changes, because it was never resting on God.

Habakkuk models trust that keeps its complaint

Although the fig tree shall not blossom, yet I will rejoice in the LORD. He does not withdraw his questions from chapters one and two. He arrives at trust with the questions still in his hands, and the answer he was given was simply that the just shall live by faith.

Trust is a decision spoken to the soul

Why are you cast down, O my soul? Hope in God. David preaches to himself. Scripture treats trust as something we tell ourselves on purpose, not something that arrives unbidden.

God's promises are not made against evidence but on his oath

God confirmed his promise with an oath so that we might have strong consolation. Trust is not asked for on thin ground. Scripture describes God binding himself, precisely because he knew we would need something to hold in the dark.

Trust often looks like obedience before it looks like peace

Abraham rose up early in the morning. The text records the action before it records any resolution of feeling. Some of the strongest trust in Scripture is visible only in what a person did next.

Trust admits its own weakness and is still accepted

Lord, I ; help you my unbelief. The father says two contradictory things in one breath, and his son is healed. Jesus does not require a clean confession before he acts.

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The words behind the question

batach

Hebrew: to lean on, to feel secure, to be confident

The primary Old Testament word for trust is physical. It is the posture of a man putting his weight on a staff. Trust in Hebrew is not an opinion held about God. It is weight placed on him.

pisteuo

Greek: to believe, to entrust oneself to

The New Testament verb includes commitment, not just agreement. uses it of Jesus not entrusting himself to men. Believing in this vocabulary means handing yourself over.

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Cross references

Trust distinguished from self-reliance

  • is set directly against leaning on one's own understanding.

  • Cursed is the man that trusts in man, blessed is the man that trusts in the LORD, framed as opposite destinies.

  • Some trust in chariots and horses, but we will remember the name of the LORD our God.

  • Perfect peace is kept for the mind stayed on God, because it trusts in him.

Trust proved in hardship

  • Abraham is tested by a command that made no sense until the provision arrived.

  • Habakkuk resolves to rejoice in the LORD even if the fig tree does not blossom and the fields yield no food.

  • The three men trust God to deliver them, and add that even if he does not, they will not bow.

  • Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him, spoken from the middle of Job's suffering rather than after it ended.

God's character as the ground of trust

  • Trust grows out of knowing God's name, his revealed character, not abstract confidence.

  • His mercies are new every morning, great is your faithfulness, giving trust a daily foundation.

  • God's promise and oath are two immutable things in which it is impossible for God to lie.

  • God is not a man that he should lie, grounding trust in a nature rather than a mood.

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Common misunderstandings

Trust means believing everything will turn out well

The three men in said God is able to deliver us, but if not, we still will not bow. That sentence is the biblical shape of trust, and it does not depend on the outcome.

If you trusted God you would not be struggling

Habakkuk, David, Jeremiah, Job and Paul all trusted God loudly while struggling openly. Struggle is where trust is exercised, not where it is disproved.

Trust is a feeling of calm

Feelings follow, sometimes much later. Abraham's trust is recorded as saddling a donkey, not as serenity.

Stop asking questions and just have faith

Scripture is full of God's people asking hard questions and receiving answers, or receiving God himself. Habakkuk's complaint is inspired Scripture.

Trust more and God will give you what you asked for

This makes trust a transaction. lists people who received the promises and people who did not receive them in this life, and calls both faith.

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Things most readers miss

Proverbs 3:5 is followed by a command to act

In all your ways acknowledge him comes next. Trust in Proverbs is not passive waiting. It is bringing God into the decisions you are already making.

Habakkuk's psalm of trust names the failure of every crop

He lists fig, , olive, field, and herd. He does not hope the harvest recovers. He decides to rejoice in the LORD in a scenario where nothing recovers.

Israel's trust failed at the point of memory, not information

They had seen the sea open and still feared . The problem was never insufficient evidence. It was that fear is present tense and memory needs deliberate rehearsal.

Jesus slept in the storm

places a sleeping Christ in a sinking boat. The disciples' question is do you not care. His answer addresses their fear, not the reasonableness of their alarm. Trust is asked for in a boat that is genuinely taking on water.

Trust is repeatedly linked to God's name

Again and again Scripture says those who know his name trust him. Names in Hebrew carry character. Trust grows by learning who God is rather than by trying to feel more certain.

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Someone in Scripture faced this too

These are people who trusted God without a clear view of the outcome. Their circumstances differed from yours, and their situation of not being able to see ahead did not.

Abraham, waiting twenty five years

What he or she went through

Abraham was promised descendants and given decades of nothing, long past the age when the promise made biological sense. He also failed along the way, more than once.

How God responded

God did not withdraw the promise when Abraham faltered. Isaac was born at the appointed time, and Paul says Abraham grew strong through faith as he waited.

What we learn

Trust is usually grown in the delay rather than in the fulfilment. Waiting well is not passivity, it is the main work of faith.

How it points to Christ

The promise Abraham trusted reached its end in Christ, in whom all nations are blessed ().

Habakkuk, who decided in advance

What he or she went through

Habakkuk was told that invasion was coming and that God would not prevent it. He had a clear picture of loss ahead: no fruit, no , empty fields.

How God responded

God gave him a vision and a call to live by faith. Habakkuk answered by resolving to rejoice in the Lord even if every visible support failed.

What we learn

You can settle the question of trust before the hardship arrives. Habakkuk shows what it sounds like to name the worst and still name God as your strength.

The disciples in the storm

What he or she went through

Experienced fishermen were convinced they were about to drown, and Jesus was asleep in the boat. Their fear was reasonable, and their conclusion that he did not care was not.

How God responded

Jesus stilled the wind with a word and then asked why they had no faith. The rebuke came with the rescue, not instead of it.

What we learn

His apparent inattention in a storm is not indifference. Trust is learning who is in the boat rather than measuring the size of the waves.

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Christ and this question

The cross is the evidence that settles the question of God's goodwill

makes the argument in one sentence. He that spared not his own Son, how shall he not also freely give us all things. Paul reasons from the greatest gift to the lesser ones. If God has already given the costliest thing, his goodwill in smaller matters is not in doubt.

This is why Christian trust is not optimism. It has a fixed historical reference point. Whatever you are facing, the question of whether God is disposed towards you has already been answered publicly and at enormous cost.

Christ also trusted. He committed himself to him that judges righteously, and he prayed into my hands I commend my spirit with his life ending. Trust is not something he asks of us that he never had to practise.

And he was raised. Which means the man who trusted God through the worst circumstances in history was vindicated, and he is the one asking you to lean.

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What to do with this

Rehearse the history

Write down specific past mercies with dates. is a command to remember, and it works because vague gratitude cannot compete with a present fear.

Say the complaint before you say the confession

Habakkuk did. So did David. Trust that skips the honesty tends to be brittle.

Learn one attribute of God at a time

Study his faithfulness, or his patience, or his justice. Trust grows out of the knowledge of his name rather than out of effort.

Obey the next small thing

Not the whole future. The next call, the next act of kindness, the next day of work. Abraham's trust looked like rising early.

Add the Daniel 3 clause

Ask plainly for what you want, and then say and if not, I will still not bow. It removes the outcome from the foundation.

Do not do it alone

Trust is sustained in company. links assurance to gathering, and isolation is where suspicion of God grows best.

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Study the question further

How can I trust God when he has not answered my prayer?

Scripture separates being heard from being granted. Daniel was heard on the first day and answered on the twenty-first. Paul was heard and refused, and given instead. Trust rests on God's character rather than on the arrival of the answer.

  1. The angel tells Daniel his words were heard 'from the first day' though the answer took three weeks to arrive because of an unseen conflict. This shows that delay in the visible world does not mean delay in heaven. The gap between asking and answering is not evidence of neglect.

  2. Paul asks three times for the thorn to be removed and is told 'my grace is sufficient for thee.' The prayer was heard and answered with something other than removal. Trust learns to receive the answer God gives rather than insisting on the one requested.

  3. The vision is 'yet for an appointed time' and 'though it tarry, wait for it.' Habakkuk is told plainly that the answer has a fixed date he cannot see. Waiting is framed as certainty on a delay, not as uncertainty.

  4. Jesus asks 'shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them?' He assumes long-suffering on God's part alongside certain justice. Persistence in prayer is treated as ordinary, not as a sign that God is reluctant.

How to apply this today

  • What is the difference for you between being heard and being answered the way you asked?
  • Are you willing to wait on an appointed time you cannot see, the way Habakkuk was told to?

Father, I do not know if you have heard me or delayed me, but Daniel was heard on the first day though the answer took three weeks. My is sufficient for you is not the answer I wanted, but it is the one Paul received. Give me strength to wait on your timing. Amen.

Does God test our faith?

Yes, and Scripture says so plainly in , , and . The stated purpose is never to gather information God lacks. It is to make faith proven, refined and durable.

  1. The text states outright that 'God did tempt Abraham,' using the word for testing rather than temptation to sin. The reader is told the purpose before Abraham is, which shows the trial exists for Abraham's growth and for the record, not for God's discovery.

  2. Peter compares tested faith to gold tried in the fire, 'that the trial of your faith... might be found unto praise and honour and glory.' The image assumes faith survives the fire and is improved by it, the way heat removes dross from metal rather than destroying it.

  3. 'The trying of your faith works patience.' James names the mechanism directly: trial produces endurance when it is allowed to finish its work, described two verses later as being 'perfect and entire, wanting nothing.'

  4. Moses tells Israel the wilderness was 'to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart.' The testing revealed to Israel itself what was already there, functioning like a mirror rather than an exam God needed to pass them on.

How to apply this today

  • What is this trial revealing about what was already in your heart?
  • Can you receive this testing as refinement rather than punishment?

Father, you know already what is in me, but I am only now discovering it myself. Let this trial work patience rather than bitterness, and let my faith come through it tried like gold rather than destroyed by the fire. Amen.

What is the difference between faith and trust?

In biblical vocabulary they overlap almost entirely. Faith tends to describe the conviction, trust the leaning. The Hebrew and Greek words include both, which is why Scripture can say and entrust yourself in the same breath.

  1. Faith is defined as 'the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.' It is conviction about what has not yet appeared, which is why the chapter that follows lists actions rather than feelings as its evidence.

  2. 'Trust in the LORD with all your heart' uses a verb that pictures leaning your body weight onto something solid. Trust is what belief looks like when it is put under actual load, rather than merely held as an opinion.

  3. Jesus 'did not commit himself unto them' using the same Greek verb translated believe elsewhere. The word covers both intellectual assent and personal entrustment, which is exactly why the New Testament can use one word for both.

How to apply this today

  • Where is your faith merely an opinion you hold rather than weight you have actually leaned?
  • What decision today would turn your belief into entrusting yourself to him?

Father, I things about you that I have not yet leaned my weight on. Let my faith become trust, an actual leaning rather than an opinion held at a safe distance. I entrust myself to you today. Amen.

Is it wrong to doubt?

The father in confessed belief and unbelief together, and Jesus acted. Thomas doubted and was invited to touch the wounds. Scripture distinguishes honest doubt that comes to God from settled unbelief that turns away.

  1. 'And of some have compassion, making a difference' is applied to those who are doubting. The New Testament's instruction toward doubters is patience and distinction, not contempt.

Thomas
Thomas refused to believe the other disciples' report and demanded to see the wounds himself. Jesus did not rebuke him from a distance. He came and offered exactly the evidence Thomas had named, then said 'be not faithless, but believing.' Doubt that stays in the room with the other believers gets met.
The father of the boy with a spirit
He says 'Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief' in a single breath, admitting both at once rather than pretending to a confidence he did not have. Jesus healed the boy on the strength of that mixed, honest prayer.

How to apply this today

  • Are you bringing your doubt to God, the way Thomas stayed in the room, or carrying it away from him?
  • What honest sentence, believed and unbelieving both, do you need to pray today?

Lord, I ; help you my unbelief. I say both things in the same breath, and I am asking you to meet me in the middle of them the way you met that father and Thomas. Do not let my doubt push me out of the room. Amen.

How do I grow my faith?

says faith comes by hearing the word of God. The ordinary means are Scripture, prayer, the Lord's table, the company of believers, and obedience in small things over time. Faith grows by use, like a limb.

  1. 'So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.' Paul locates the source of faith outside ourselves, in something heard repeatedly rather than manufactured by effort or personality.

  2. The disciples ask Jesus to 'increase our faith,' and he answers with a parable about a mustard seed and a servant doing his duty. The reply redirects them from asking for a bigger measure to simply doing the next obedient thing.

  3. Peter tells readers to add virtue, knowledge, temperance and more to their faith, 'giving all diligence.' Faith is treated as something joined to deliberate effort rather than left to grow on its own.

How to apply this today

  • What ordinary means, Scripture, prayer, gathering, have you been neglecting while asking for more faith?
  • What is the next small obedient thing available to you today, rather than a bigger measure of faith?

Father, faith comes by hearing your word, not by wishing for more of it. Give me diligence to add to what I have rather than waiting for a feeling to arrive first. Let me do the next small obedient thing today. Amen.

How did Job trust God when he lost everything in a single day?

Job worshipped before he understood anything, and his trust was not calm certainty but honest wrestling that never let go of God. Scripture holds up his response as faithful precisely because it includes both grief and refusal to curse God.

  1. 'Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.' Job says this in the middle of demanding an explanation from God, which shows that trust and complaint were never treated as opposites in his mouth.

  2. 'I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear: but now my eye sees you.' God never answers Job's specific questions about his suffering. He answers with himself, and that encounter is what settles Job, which is instructive about what trust is finally resting on.

Job
On hearing that his children were dead and his wealth gone, Job 'fell down upon the ground, and worshipped,' saying 'the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.' The text adds that 'in all this Job sinned not.' His trust was expressed in worship offered at the worst possible moment, not in an absence of pain.

How to apply this today

  • What would it look like for you to worship before you understand anything, as Job did?
  • Where are you demanding an explanation instead of settling, as Job finally did, for God's own presence?

Father, the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away, blessed be your name. Though you slay me, yet will I trust in you. I want to worship before I understand, and to be settled by your presence rather than by an explanation. Amen.

What do I do when I feel God has abandoned me?

Scripture takes that feeling seriously and gives you words for it rather than telling you it is illegitimate. The Psalms include cries of abandonment prayed by godly people, and God's promise not to leave or forsake still stands underneath the feeling.

Name it to God rather than around him

begins 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?' This is inspired prayer, not a lapse into unbelief. Praying the feeling directly keeps the relationship open.

Distinguish feeling from fact

quotes God's promise 'I will never leave you, nor forsake you,' given as a fixed word regardless of how present he feels in a given hour. Feelings fluctuate; the promise does not.

Remember Christ went further into it than you have

Jesus prayed word for word on . Whatever abandonment feels like, he entered it fully so that his promise to you would be trustworthy on the far side of it.

How to apply this today

  • Have you named this feeling to God directly, the way Psalm 22 does, rather than carrying it silently?
  • What has God actually promised that does not depend on how present he feels right now?

Father, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me. I bring you this feeling directly because your own Son prayed it before me. You have said you will never leave me nor forsake me, and I am asking you to make that word louder than this feeling tonight. Amen.

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Reflection

  • What are you actually leaning on right now, if you are honest about where your weight is?
  • Which past mercy have you stopped rehearsing because it is old news?
  • Have you attached your trust to an outcome rather than to God's character?
  • What is the next small act of obedience available to you today, regardless of how you feel?
  • Could you say and if not, I will still not bow, and mean it?

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Prayer

Father, I want to trust you and I am not sure that I do. My understanding has run out and I am leaning on something, but I do not think it is you.

Remind me of what you have already done. I have forgotten mercies I once wept over. Bring them back to me plainly, and let them weigh more than my fear.

You did not spare your own Son. I cannot argue with that, even on my worst night. Let settle the question of whether you are for me.

Help you my unbelief. Give me to rise early and do the next thing, and to say honestly that if this is not delivered, you are still good. In the name of Jesus Christ, who trusted you to the end. Amen.

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Further reading

  • Trust that survives the failure of every harvest.

  • Trust recorded as an action before a feeling.

  • God is able, and if not, we still will not bow.

  • The argument from to everything else.

  • A man preaching hope to his own soul.

  • Faith in those who received the promise and those who did not.

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Explore the passage

These are questions the text can actually answer. Take one, go back to the passage with it, and read until Scripture answers rather than until you have an explanation you like. Each question names where this study, or another passage, does the answering.

What this reveals about God

Start here, because every passage of Scripture is first about God before it is about us. Read for what He does, what He says, and what He is called.

  • What does these passages teach about God?

    Underline every verb God is the subject of. What He does tells you who He is.

    What God says first

  • What does these passages reveal about God's character?

    Look for the words the text itself uses of Him: holy, merciful, faithful, jealous, patient. Take the text's own vocabulary rather than your own.

    The biblical case

What this reveals about us

Scripture is honest about people. Read for what it says of human need, human failure, and the kind of response it calls for.

  • What does these passages teach about humanity?

    Watch what the people in the text want, fear, and trust. Scripture rarely flatters them.

    Why we ask this

  • What does these passages reveal about faith?

    Faith in Scripture is always faith in someone, about something specific. Ask what exactly is being believed here, and on what word.

    Someone in Scripture faced this too

Where this arrives in Christ

Jesus said the Scriptures testify of Him. Follow the line the Bible itself draws rather than inventing one.

The world behind the words

The first readers knew things we have to learn. Recovering what they knew is study, not speculation.

  • How would the original audience have understood these passages?

    Ask what they had already been told, what they were living through, and what this would have cost them to believe.

    Who first received this

  • What historical or cultural background helps explain these passages?

    Look at the work, the worship, the law and the customs the text assumes you already understand.

    The setting behind the answer

  • What do these words carry in the original: batach, pisteuo?

    Take the word to its root, its first appearance, and its range of use. Then let the context choose the meaning.

    The words in Hebrew and Greek

How this connects to the rest of Scripture

Scripture is its own best commentary. The clearest answers usually come from another passage rather than from a scholar.

  • Which Old and New Testament passages help explain these passages?

    Prefer passages that quote or clearly echo this text. Those links are the Bible's own, not ours.

    Where else Scripture speaks

  • What biblical themes are developed in these passages, and where do they begin?

    Trace one theme backwards to where Scripture first raises it, then forwards to where it lands.

    Things most readers miss

What this asks of you

Application is the last step, never the first, and it must come out of the passage rather than out of general advice.

  • What does these passages teach believers to do today?

    Say it as one sentence you could obey this week, and be able to point at the verse it came from.

    What to do with this

Where faithful readers differ

Some questions here are genuinely open. Where Bible believing Christians read this differently, the readings are set out with the passages behind each one, and what Scripture states plainly is kept separate from what is interpretation.

  • Which parts of these passages does Scripture state plainly, and which parts are interpretation?

    Write two lists. Anything you cannot put in the first list, hold loosely and say so when you teach it.

    Answers that fall short

Questions Audela will not answer

Where Scripture does not answer a question, Audela says so plainly rather than filling the silence. An honest “the Bible does not tell us” is more faithful than a confident guess, and it keeps the reader’s trust in God’s Word rather than in our reasoning.

The secret things belong unto the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever.

(KJV)
Not: Why did God choose this?
Ask instead: What does the passage say God did, and what does that reveal about His character?
Not: What was God thinking?
Ask instead: What has God told us about His purpose here, in this text or elsewhere in Scripture?
Not: Why didn’t God do it differently?
Ask instead: What does Scripture say about how God acts, and where does it say it?
Not: What would have happened if God had done something else?
Ask instead: What happened, and what does the rest of Scripture make of it?

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Study tools

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Where this leads

A question is a doorway, not a destination. Here is where this one leads if you want to keep reading rather than stop at an answer.

  1. Topic hub

    Study this theme across the whole Bible

  2. Primary study

    Read Proverbs 3:1-12 as the trellis, then Genesis 22 as trust tested in the dark.

  3. Supporting studies

    • Trust learned in the valley, not away from it.

    • A God who does not grow weary while we do.

    • Trust as daily dependence.

    • The Shepherd who knows His own by name.

    • Rejoicing when nothing has improved.

  4. Deep chapter studies

Your notes

What you want to remember

Write what struck you in How do I trust God when life is difficult?. Notes print with the study, and follow your account once you sign in.

This question belongs to a reading path

  • Fear and worry in the Bible

    Readers searching what the Bible says about fear, worry and anxiety, and how to trust God when they cannot stop turning something over.

Study the themes behind this question

Related Bible chapters

The answer above came from these chapters. Read them whole, and the answer stops being something you were told and becomes something you have seen.

  • Proverbs 3

    The chapter this answer was drawn from.

  • Psalms 56

    David does not say he is never afraid. He says that when he is afraid he will trust, which makes trust a decision made inside fear rather than after it.

  • Isaiah 26

    The mind stayed on God is kept in peace. Isaiah ties trust to attention, which is something a struggling believer can actually practise.

  • Genesis 22: The Mountain Where God Revealed the Gospel

    Obedience, substitution, and the first Father who gave a son

Next question

What does it mean to fear the Lord?

The Bible commands one fear while removing others, and the difference between the two is where most readers get stuck.

Related questions

Community discussion

Read Proverbs 3:5-7 together and answer one another from the text: what two things is trust in the LORD contrasted against?

  • Solomon warns against leaning on your own understanding and being wise in your own eyes. Where in your current difficulty are you tempted to trust your own read of the situation more than what God has said?
  • The promise attached to trust is that God will direct your paths, not that the road will be easy. How does that change what you are actually asking for when you pray about a hard situation?
  • Deuteronomy 8:2 says the wilderness revealed what was already in Israel's heart. What has your present hardship revealed about where your trust really rests?

Study together

Questions on Proverbs 3

Every comment is tied to a place in the text: a verse, a span of verses, or one section of the study. Ask what you do not understand, and answer others from Scripture.

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