Want to listen to this post instead of reading? Play the audio recording below.

---

Completing tenth-grade gym class required that students dive into the pool from both the low and high diving board. I easily completed the dive from the low board. The high board dive was next. I was afraid of heights so all I wanted was that final dive to be over.

From the sidelines, the teacher called out: “you will be okay, you can trust me”. In that moment I recalled all the reasons why I couldn’t trust her words. In truth, she did not have a record of keeping her promises. Why would now be any different?

I didn’t want to fail the class, so it was now or never. I couldn’t trust the teacher’s promise. So, with all the trust I could muster in myself, I closed my eyes and jumped.

Joshua 21:45 Not one word of all the good promises that the Lord had made to the house of Israel had failed; all came to pass.

As believers, it is important that we know that God can be trusted to keep His word. As Joshua 21:45 tells us, all that God promised came to pass. That’s quite the record! So how does this relate to prayer?

Well, I have had my moments of disappointments when people have not come through on what they said they would do. Sadly, those disappointments impacted my prayer life. How? While I prayed, I did so while thinking of ways I could change the circumstances I prayed about. I was trusting in myself for the outcome, just like that day when I jumped off the high diving board.

I cringe even now as I admit that, back then, a part of me saw God’s trustworthiness as being on the same level as people who didn’t keep their promises. But God is so different. As
Numbers 23:19 declares: “God is not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?

So how do believers pray from a place of trust in God? Well, here are two ways:

First, remind yourself of God’s word. For example:

Deuteronomy 7:9 “Know therefore that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God, who keeps His covenant and His faithfulness to a thousand generations for those who love Him and keep His commandments;

Jeremiah 1:12 Then the Lord said to me, “You have seen well, for I am ready to perform My word.”

Hebrews 10:23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.

Second, pray and ask God to help you to trust Him. Remember, John 15:5 says in part, for without Me you can do nothing.

As believers, we must come to a place where we have a deep knowing that God can be trusted to do what He says. That we can trust Him with our prayers. I encourage you, as I continue to encourage myself, to meditate on scriptures that reveal the trustworthiness of God. I also encourage you to ask God to give you the grace you need to trust Him. No one has a record like our God. He alone always keeps His promises!