What does it mean to "Trust in the Lord"?

What does it mean to “Trust in the Lord” or to “Have Faith in the Lord?”

It seems from my personal experience and study, that DOUBT and FEAR are some of the main eroding factors and poisons to our Faith.

Consider the two scriptural accounts when the Lord told His New Testament disciples, “O, ye of little faith.”  In one account He used this statement when He was asleep on the boat during the storm (can you imagine how exhausted, yet at complete peace the Savior must have been?) and His disciples came to Him in a panic and fear of sinking.  They pleaded for Him to save them, to which He arose, calmed the sea, and then referred to them as “ye of little faith.”  The second account was when Peter, in great faith, went walking on the water towards the Lord, but then began to look around and sink.  Crying out to the Lord to save Him, the Savior did so, and then said, “thou of little faith.”

I think the disciples were actually very faithful in both of these circumstances.  They knew that in their need, the Savior was the one, the only one, who could rescue them.  That is where faith should always lead us, towards Him who is mighty to save.  So why would the Savior refer to them as having “Little faith?”

If we take these statements at face value in our English language, it seems He is scolding them, rather than complimenting them for coming to Him.  So what do we make of this in regards to our own faith and relationship with the Lord?

In Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke during his mortal life, the word for “little” can mean small, but it also has a strong reference to being “young or inexperienced.”  So if we begin to look at the above instances, we may see things in a different light.  It may have been as if the Savior was telling them something to the effect, “I know your faith is young and inexperienced at this point, but you did have enough faith to come to me, so why did you become fearful and doubt?  Why did you let fear and doubt overcome your faith that I could deliver you?”

Are we any different in our faith with the Lord?  How often do we find ourselves in difficult circumstances, and in our young and inexperienced faith, we cry out to God for assistance and deliverance.  But then we begin to logically think and analyze our situation and doubt and fear begin to creep in.  We don’t understand in our limited mortal vision and inexperience how the Lord could possibly get us out of the mess we find ourselves in, so rather than trusting in Him to deliver us according to His perfect manner and timing, we begin to notice the stormy waves of life around us and let the doubt and fear creep in and erode our faith.

Perhaps we can learn from these wonderful scriptural accounts, that it doesn’t matter if we don’t know how God can calm the seas of our life. We just need to trust that He can do it and will do it if we remain faithful to Him.  It may not come until the 4th watch of the night in our experiences, and it may not happen how we imagine or want  it will go, but we can always have faith in the Lord.  We can imagine Him telling us something like, “I know your faith is still young and inexperienced in such things, but you do have faith or you wouldn’t have come to me.  So hold onto that faith!  Focus on me!  Don’t look around at what is going on and begin to doubt or become afraid; just keep your faith focused on me and trust that I know how and when to best deliver you!”

The Lord I love and worship isn’t one to condemn or criticize when we are seeking Him.  He is lovingly encouraging us to learn to how to trust and have faith in Him and His perfect purposes and ways of working out our salvation to our best benefit.

“ye of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?”

Artwork = “From Fear to Faith” by Howard Lyon, and “Be Not Afraid” by Liz Lemon Swindle