Trust in God

The other seven principles are things you do with your body. Trust is different. It is where your choices come from. When the mind is anxious or afraid, even good food and a good night's sleep are hard to hold on to.

Jesus told a story about two builders. One built on sand and one built on rock. When the storm came, only the house on the rock stood. Trust in God is that rock. It does not stop the storms, but it keeps you standing through them.

Dr Mark Sandoval, in his book The Law of Life, compares a person to a fruit tree. The fruit and leaves are what we notice first: how we feel, and the troubles we complain about. The branches are our habits, such as breathing, eating, drinking and sleeping. The trunk is our needs, which we cannot change, because they come from what we are.

Below the ground are the roots, which are our beliefs, and around the roots is the soil: the sources we draw from. A good gardener with a struggling tree does not pluck off the poor fruit. He looks at the roots and the soil. That is why trust comes first. What we believe, and whom we draw from, feeds everything above the ground.

Dr Horst Müller, whose book Why Do We Get Sick? the trust gives away, spent many years listening to his patients. He teaches that we are more than a body. The spirit, or mind, leads, and the body follows. The body cannot fetch its own food or water. It sends signals, and the mind decides what to do.

So what we believe, and whom we trust, shapes how we live. Dr Müller points to this verse, written long ago by Solomon.

Dr Müller teaches that every person needs love as surely as they need air, water and food, and that, like air, we cannot make it ourselves. We have to receive it from outside. He writes that if we try to get our love from people, “it’s like trying to get air from the water” (Why Do We Get Sick?, page 89).

His answer is that God is the true source of love. We receive His love first, and then we have love to pass on to others. Dr Sandoval says the same thing in other words: we have to take before we can give, and the One we trust is the one we take from.

No one can do this for us. Dr Müller writes that God does not control or force anyone, so trust is always our own choice.

Ellen G. White, whose book The Ministry of Healing lists the eight principles together, wrote often about how closely the mind and the body are joined. In her words: “The relation that exists between the mind and the body is very intimate. When one is affected, the other sympathizes.” (The Ministry of Healing, page 241)

Her plainest advice is thankfulness. It costs nothing, it can be practised in any circumstances, and it turns the mind towards the good things God has already given.

Trust is not the same as never worrying. It is knowing where to take the worry. Many of us pray about a problem and then pick it straight back up again. Dr Sandoval's advice is to put it down and leave it there.

Trust does not depend on feeling strong. When you are ill, in pain or worn out, you may not have the energy to pray for long, or even to think clearly. That is all right. God's care does not wait for us to be at our best.

You may not share our faith, and you are very welcome here. Trust grows the same way between any two people: by talking, listening and spending time together. You could start by simply telling God, in your own words, what is on your mind. There is no special language to learn.