“When I am afraid, I will put my trust in You.”  Psalm 56:3

Have you ever stopped and thought about when you employ trust?  Is it something we constantly do, or is it something that is done when a situation triggers a need for it?  How inherent is it in us to trust and how do we give it out?  These questions are important to consider when assessing who, what, when and whether you are actually trusting in any given moment.

These questions led me into deeper thought and analysis of how and when I trust.  While I already understood that trust varies between situations and the history accumulated in those interactions, I decided to looked more closely at what I was qualifying as trust.  I found that with some that I don’t even pause before trusting them because of the well-established patterns of their prior trustworthy actions.  With others, their inconsistency or limited interactions have left me hesitant to have the confidence or hope that my trust was well placed.  The converse was also important to consider: what established my trustworthiness and what had a tendency to tear it down.

As I reflected on all of this, the next natural inquiry was what was I actually trusting?  What about someone was causing me to place my trust in them?  What was it that they provided me with consistently that led me to trust them, and surprisingly, it seemed like most explanations led back to the idea that their presence, supported by their actions, brought about comfort in or to me.  Looking at the verse, I decided to write it down again, but this time I inserted the word, “comfort”, as the root of trust, into the space that it held in the sentence:

“When I am afraid, I will put my [comfort] in You.” (insertion mine)

Hmmm…after reading it a couple of times and even saying it out loud, the mere construction of that sentence caused me to stop and reconsider just what God might be saying.  Now I have written about the ability of God to comfort us and that is truer than we can comprehend, but this sentence structure suggested that the comfort being spoken was already ours.  Hence, “I will put my comfort in You” implies that there may be comfort that already exists but something about it is misplaced or not truly effective in alleviating our fears or discomfort.

How so?  Whose comfort is it referring to:  my comfort.  Not God’s, but the one that I am somehow holding onto; the ones that I have determined are best for me when faced with situations where fear, hurt or indifference trigger the need for comfort.  However, our determination of what may be best can be, and often is, quite different than what may truly be best.  In reality, we likely seek other things–without even fully grasping that we are doing so–to comfort us long before we allow God to bring us what we really need.

While mulling this over more, the first thing that popped into my mind was how we comfort ourselves with “comfort” food.  Many of us turn to such delicacies in times of struggle or fear.  It can be something homemade, something store bought, something from a bottle or some type of smell or action that brings about a sense of control or pleasure–a release, in a way, from the discomfort we are feeling.

There is a simple and beautiful truth in the idea that food can comfort us.  When we are not feeling good or happy or at peace, the simple pleasure of something sweet, savory or refreshing rolling over our taste buds can very much remind us that good does exist in this trying time of life.  The receptors throughout our body receive a surge of energy and satisfaction despite that life may be so painful and baffling.  It is why people often make and share food with grieving families who have experienced a painful loss. It is why we take food to those battling illness as a sign of support.  Food holds the power to comfort, encourage and support.  Much of our lives are centered around food and its ability to bring joy, love and happiness to our situations.  It becomes even more comforting when it helps us to feel something different that what may be overwhelming our systems.

Let us understand that by unfolding the word trust a little further, we can see that it  derives from the word, comfort.  In deference to the weighty matter of learning better how to fully trust God, we need to slow down and let that concept really sink in by asking ourselves what do we turn to for comfort?  Going further, what if–over the course of our lives–we have found and developed things to bring us “comfort” in difficult times?  Things that we readily turn to: reactions, activities, coping mechanisms, patterns or decisions.  All of these things take root in us, because we have grown comfortable with them through allowing them to comfort us. However, not all of our choices are best nor is every coping mechanism or reaction right.  We must consider also that we have learned how to deploy them quickly.  Directly related to the sense of comfort, we likely “know” what their results will be and may too willingly continue to employ them, even when those results aren’t always positive–just because it feels comfortable.  Thus, these things that have become firmly rooted in our lives also become what we turn to first.  Because of their familiarity and our comfort in them, we don’t even give God a chance to comfort us.  When we don’t allow Him to comfort us with what is best, how can we claim that we are trusting Him?  In fact, we don’t even have to exercise our faith in Him because we have more faith in that with which we have found comforting.

Hence, this might be why this verse–and unfolding it–may want us to turn from our comforts to His…”When I am afraid, I will put my comfort in You.”

When we were little and needed that teddy bear or our blankie, God understood that we were young and needed that extra support.  Most likely we were also more easily trusting of Him, along with the aids He provided us as comfort.  But as we have grown…as our faith continues to develop and stretch…God may be asking us to give up those things. especially those things that we regularly turn to.  The things that we automatically engage to bring us comfort, instead of placing our trust solely in His ability to do just that: comfort. In Hebrews 11:1, it states that “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”  The very definition of faith asks us to trust in the intangible with hope and certainty of what we cannot yet touch or behold in those moments where there is nothing concrete to hold onto in this world.  Putting aside our “comforts” might be like taking the training wheels off of our faith and learning how to trust God to provide the right balance of what is needed to truly comfort us.

Understand that comfort food is just that–comforting.  But most definitions of comfort food involve weighty dishes that ooze warmth, tenderness, and tummy filling goodness.  One of my favorite dishes is macaroni and cheese.  All of that warm, flowing cheesy happiness that delights my tongue and taste buds, but you know what?  A couple of things happen when I indulge comfort food.  First, I often overeat it when I have it, and no matter what, as it processes through my system, I quite frequently end up feeling…later…like I have a heavy weight in my stomach.  What had been comforting becomes uncomfortable.  Secondly, too many times the indulgence of comfort food for “comfort” leads to extra pounds or unsettling and painful indigestion.  In these settings, we often hear, “I really shouldn’t!” or “I don’t feel so good!” reminding us that these temporary measures of comfort might not be the best for us.  And why?  Because those negative affects can easily outweigh the momentary “comfort” of those tantalizing bites.

And that reflection led to this thought:  Is it possible that the comforts we have developed and claim to be right for ourselves–in the temporary measures that they are–actually lead us away from God and into cycles of continual return to those fabricated sources of comfort?  May that be why change doesn’t come and wounds don’t heal like we pray they will?  Is that how addiction, overindulgence and dissatisfaction are born in us?  Wanting comfort, too quickly and maybe too easily, even if it comes from our own hands, without patiently waiting on God to provide it in the perfect measure.  Thus, creating comfort by our own design rather than trusting God for His.  Does this explain, in part, why we so frequently return to unhealthy choices and patterns because we are seeking them as our source of comfort rather than truly turning to our God?

If that is the case, then let us pause and take inventory of how and what we see as comfort.  Let us carefully discern what worldly comforts we readily run towards before we even seek out God.  “My comfort” argues they already exist, so let’s find them and understand them better so that we can truly trust Him more for the right kinds of comfort.  Let us turn to Him by purposefully choosing to believe that He knows exactly the best way to bring us comfort in our fear and suffering.  Let us willingly put our comfort in Him.

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”  2 Corinthians 1:3-4