Why do we Trust God?

[stelf]

5 minutes ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

This is one reason why, I think, that there is a necessity for that personal revelation - that personal experience with God. Even if it is not some sort of continuous experience or engagement. There is something of this sort in the D&C when Oliver Cowdery is having his doubts. So D&C 6:22-24 -

There is a lot to unpack there, but, I think it is relevant to the question. I think it can be a bit more complicated than this if it is our own experience that we become skeptical of - but - I think that this witness from God is certainly greater than those sources that we tend to look at as authoritative (but which we can lose trust in).

Yes! I am not skeptical of my experiences, but when we have instances where our spiritual experiences contradict the standard narrative and we must choose which to trust. However, if we trust the external source then we might invalidate the personal experiences which are the thing keeping trusting the external source.

[JVW]

This thread immediately brought to mind step 3 in addiction recovery: Decide to turn our wills and our lives over to the care of God, the Eternal Father, and His Son, Jesus Christ.
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/addiction-recovery-program-2023/05-step-3?lang=eng

Notice that trusting God is the 3rd step, there are 2 other steps to take before it: admit that we are powerless, and come to believe that God can heal us (i.e. be humble and choose to believe in Jesus).

The video at the top of the linked page is really well done and very powerful, all of the addiction recovery videos are. A few excerpts from this step that I like are:
 

Quote

When we took this step, we felt terrified of the unknown. What would happen if we humbled ourselves and surrendered our lives and wills completely to God’s care? For many of us, childhood was very hard, and we were terrified of becoming as vulnerable as little children again. Because of past experiences, we were convinced that committing to recovery was nearly impossible. We had seen other people break too many commitments, and we had broken too many ourselves.

At first, our efforts were anxious and halting. We kept giving Jesus Christ our trust and then taking it back. We worried that He would be displeased at our inconsistency and withdraw His support and love from us. But He didn’t.

Submitting to God can be hard for us. It requires us to rededicate ourselves to His will each day, sometimes every hour, or even moment to moment. As we are willing to do so, we find the grace and enabling power to do what we cannot do for ourselves.

For the record I'm still in the first 3 steps and I've been working on it for over a year. I'm not a model for trusting in God, but I do believe that it is a worthy goal and worth the effort.

[2BizE]

I think everyone believed (or doesn’t believe) in God differently. There are many Gods out there that as Mormons we believe in. The OT God, as depicted in scripture, is much different from the NT God and the BoM God.  The current Mormon God is much different as well. It is how humans manipulate God into being what they want. I also believe as members of the church, we each believe in God differently. In the end, God is as unique as each human.

[bluebell]

2 hours ago, stelf said:

Something that really complicates this for me is what happens when we lose trust in the sources from which we learn about God?

I think that's why so many people leave Christianity all together when they leave the church.  The way that they believed the church was true and the way that they believed that God exists and that Jesus is the Christ were usually the same way.  When one was no longer trustworthy, the other often followed.

[bluebell]

1 hour ago, JVW said:

Notice that trusting God is the 3rd step, there are 2 other steps to take before it: admit that we are powerless, and come to believe that God can heal us (i.e. be humble and choose to believe in Jesus).

 

That's interesting.  That you can't really trust God until you first believe that He is good.  

[bluebell]

1 hour ago, MustardSeed said:

I think this is what I was talking about earlier.  
God has never let me down in the trust I have that He exists- love, beauty, energy, connection- it’s abundant and very consistent.  
I don’t think God expects me to blindly trust any men and women without accountability to be held. IMO. 

 

Thanks for clarifying, I understand your previous post better.  Like you, I don't struggle at all to trust that God exists, and I think I trust that for the same reasons that you do.

[JVW]

1 hour ago, 2BizE said:

I think everyone believed (or doesn’t believe) in God differently. There are many Gods out there that as Mormons we believe in. The OT God, as depicted in scripture, is much different from the NT God and the BoM God.  The current Mormon God is much different as well. It is how humans manipulate God into being what they want. I also believe as members of the church, we each believe in God differently. In the end, God is as unique as each human.

I don't think the OT God is different than the NT or BoM one. I don't think the current God is different than how He is in the OT, NT, and BoM. I also think Jesus agrees with me when He says in Matthew 22:36-40, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." He says all of "the law and the prophets", which I believe is the Old Testament. So if Jesus lived the law of the OT, honored the law of the OT, preached the law of the OT, and fulfilled the law of the OT, I don't understand how the God of the OT, which LDS believe was Jesus, is different than the God of the NT, which is also Jesus.

I do agree with you on the rest of your point. God is like the elephant, and we are all blind touching different parts of it. From what I've studied, I think that LDS has the best wholistic description of who God is. The only aspect of that description that I've personally verified is that God is love.

[stelf]

1 hour ago, JVW said:

I don't think the OT God is different than the NT or BoM one. I don't think the current God is different than how He is in the OT, NT, and BoM. I also think Jesus agrees with me when He says in Matthew 22:36-40, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." He says all of "the law and the prophets", which I believe is the Old Testament. So if Jesus lived the law of the OT, honored the law of the OT, preached the law of the OT, and fulfilled the law of the OT, I don't understand how the God of the OT, which LDS believe was Jesus, is different than the God of the NT, which is also Jesus.

I do agree with you on the rest of your point. God is like the elephant, and we are all blind touching different parts of it. From what I've studied, I think that LDS has the best wholistic description of who God is. The only aspect of that description that I've personally verified is that God is love.

I would be okay with saying that God was not different during OT times vs NT vs BOM. However, the way God is depicted in the OT is very different from how He is depicted in other scripture. For me this simply means that the OT is a book written by people who were trying to figure out God and got a lot wrong. 

[The Nehor]

3 hours ago, 2BizE said:

I think everyone believed (or doesn’t believe) in God differently. There are many Gods out there that as Mormons we believe in. The OT God, as depicted in scripture, is much different from the NT God and the BoM God.

Welcome to Gnosticism. That demiurge is a tricksy fellow.

[Vanguard]

On 3/29/2025 at 11:56 AM, bluebell said:

How do we get to a place where we trust God first, and not after He has shown that in this instance He knows best?  How do we let God be God in our lives?

Every time we 'get to a place' where we trust, it may then be subject to crumbling down if things in the future don't continue going our way.

When we speak of 'trust' I'm not sure what that means anyway? Trust what? That God will...?

 

[bluebell]

32 minutes ago, Vanguard said:

Every time we 'get to a place' where we trust, it may then be subject to crumbling down if things in the future don't continue going our way.

When we speak of 'trust' I'm not sure what that means anyway? Trust what? That God will...?

 

Good point.

Trust that God is good. Trust that He gives good and useful gifts, not harmful gifts. Trust that His will is always better than ours for us. 

[Vanguard]

1 hour ago, bluebell said:

Good point.

Trust that God is good. Trust that He gives good and useful gifts, not harmful gifts. Trust that His will is always better than ours for us. 

Well, that kind of medicine goes down real hard but yes, how could we look at it any other way? Under this rubric, anything coming from God has to be 'good' even if on it's surface seems horrific. Difficult, indeed.

Edited March 31, 2025 by Vanguard

[bluebell]

14 minutes ago, Vanguard said:

Well, that kind of medicine goes down real hard but yes, how could we look at it any other way? Under this rubric, anything coming from God has to be 'good' even if on it's surface seems horrific. Difficult, in.

Well, I think that these kinds of experiences are so emotional that knowing something theoretically doesn't always transfer to how we react to it.  We may "know" that God is good but then be mad at Him when He allows us to lose our home or get a disease or whatever. 

You could argue that if we truly knew that God was good, we would never be mad at Him doing what is best for us, right?  But some of us get mad at Him doing what is best for us all the time.  So the question becomes, is God good and if yes, then why is it hard to trust Him?

[Vanguard]

8 minutes ago, bluebell said:

Well, I think that these kinds of experiences are so emotional that knowing something theoretically doesn't always transfer to how we react to it.  We may "know" that God is good but then be mad at Him when He allows us to lose our home or get a disease or whatever. 

Agreed.

8 minutes ago, bluebell said:

So the question becomes, is God good and if yes, then why is it hard to trust Him?

It's hard to trust Him because what he may have in store for me frequently runs contrary to how I think things should go.

And if I'm correct, what then would be the purpose of prayer?

[MustardSeed]

And does he do for us what is best?  
 

in my line of work I’m having a hard time believing that is the case. 

[MustardSeed]

9 minutes ago, Vanguard said:

And if I'm correct, what then would be the purpose of prayer

I asked my husband the exact same question an hour ago. 
I think the correct answer is so that we can practice humility. It certainly isn’t to increase the likelihood of outcome- I have prayed more for the things I’ll never experience than I have for the lovely things that have found their way to me . 

[bluebell]

13 minutes ago, Vanguard said:

 

And if I'm correct, what then would be the purpose of prayer?

I've come up with a couple of reasons that make sense to me, just due to my own experiences with prayer. Other people probably have other reasons or have never experienced mine.  And there are probably a lot more that i'm just not spiritually mature enough yet to recognize or appreciate.  It's definitely not so that we can change God's mind.  I figured that one out long ago.

I think prayer is how we have any kind of relationship with Him.  I don't know how to have a relationship with someone that I never speak to, and I don't even know if it's possible.  

I also think that prayer is how I can access His guidance when it's the hardest for me to hear.  Not that He only guides me when I pray, but in my life, the times that I've needed to accept something that I didn't want to accept, understand something that I was trying really hard not to understand (usually this is when I'm complaining about something or someone), or do something that I didn't want to do, it was only after praying that I was humble enough for the spirit to get through to me.

And even though when I first read it in the bible dictionary I thought it was kind of dumb, I do now believe that prayer is one way that God blesses us with things that He's willing to give, we just have to ask or seek them from Him.  The reasons that I've come to believe this are not ones that I really want to share because they are too tender to me.

[bluebell]

26 minutes ago, MustardSeed said:

And does he do for us what is best?  
 

in my line of work I’m having a hard time believing that is the case. 

It's really really hard to believe sometimes.

[MustardSeed]

8 minutes ago, bluebell said:

It's really really hard to believe sometimes.

How is it even palatable in cases of child SA? It seems unconscionable to suggest that it’s gods plan.  
I don’t think He can possibly be in the formula of all this. 

[bluebell]

3 minutes ago, MustardSeed said:

How is it even palatable in cases of child SA? It seems unconscionable to suggest that it’s gods plan.  
I don’t think He can possibly be in the formula of all this. 

I agree I don't think that's God's plan.  I am always so humbled and awed by those who have suffered stuff like that and still testify of God being in their life.  I struggle to see Him in my life over much less sorrow and pain.  It's embarrassing really how entitled I feel sometimes when I compare my life to others.  It is part of the reason I'm trying to answer this question of trust.  I don't want to be that person anymore.

[Rain]

12 minutes ago, MustardSeed said:

How is it even palatable in cases of child SA? It seems unconscionable to suggest that it’s gods plan.  
I don’t think He can possibly be in the formula of all this. 

That's why I don't think He is all powerful.  In the context of this thread - that doesn't lessen my trust of Him.  I just trust that he will do what he is able to do for our benefit.

[The Nehor]

7 hours ago, Rain said:

That's why I don't think He is all powerful.  In the context of this thread - that doesn't lessen my trust of Him.  I just trust that he will do what he is able to do for our benefit.

It is hard to have absolute faith in such a being. You may hit a wall where God wants to do the right/best/whatever thing but can’t.

[ZealouslyStriving]

15 hours ago, stelf said:

I would be okay with saying that God was not different during OT times vs NT vs BOM. However, the way God is depicted in the OT is very different from how He is depicted in other scripture. For me this simply means that the OT is a book written by people who were trying to figure out God and got a lot wrong. 

Y'all must be reading a different OT than I do.

The God in my OT is immensely patient, forgiving, and loving- just like He is in the NT and BOM.

[The Nehor]

3 hours ago, ZealouslyStriving said:

Y'all must be reading a different OT than I do.

The God in my OT is immensely patient, forgiving, and loving- just like He is in the NT and BOM.

There is the whole ethnic cleansing thing.

[Vanguard]

14 hours ago, MustardSeed said:

How is it even palatable in cases of child SA? It seems unconscionable to suggest that it’s gods plan.  
I don’t think He can possibly be in the formula of all this. 

His plan does not include being spared from the horrors of this mortality. When we speak of God's plan it first and foremost must involve the turning of one's heart and mind to Him regardless of the circumstances. Some do this turning from a previous life of pride/lack of charity/relative ease and some do it from a previous (and ongoing!) life of abject fear/insecurity/fragmentation/vulnerability.