And without faith, it is impossible to please Him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that He exists and then He rewards those who seek Him.
- Hebrews 11:6
If you were to ask me what God was doing in your life, I would say he was trying to teach you to trust him. More than God wants your obedience or simply knowing a bunch of stuff about him, he wants a relationship characterized by trust and big faith.
- Andy Stanley
Every great relationship is built on love and trust/faith. It starts with a parent's love for a child, and a child's trust/faith that they will be taken care of. It is unspoken at first, at least from the child's point of view - they simply learn to trust as their needs are met, being fed, a change of a diaper, a safe place to sleep, a warm and comforting embrace. Their trust grows each time their needs are met. This is universal across every culture and people. We begin our lives learning to trust.
As relationships grow, so does trust/faith. We trust our friends to see us for who we truly are. We say and do things with them that we wouldn't with others because we trust them and have faith in them that they will keep it between us or that in a pinch they will be there for us. A true friend is faithful, is there through good and bad and can be counted on.
In marriage, we are able to become vulnerable because of trust/faith. Our spouse sees us for who we truly are, and we trust them with that - to love us warts and all. A marriage without trust/faith is not healthy and will not flourish nor thrive and may not last.
Broken trust is the end of most relationships or at least will require a lot of time and effort to rebuild. Trust/faith is earned.
That is why trust/faith is so important to God.
Above all, God wants us to love and trust Him, to put our faith in Him, because what He wants from us is a relationship.
Everything He does in our life is based on growing us in our love and trust/faith in Him. He provides for us, leads us, guides us, takes care of us, comforts us, disciplines us, and grows us, and as He does, we learn to trust Him more and more at each step.
This is how our relationship with God grows. We learn to trust, and over and over He is faithful.
Hebrews 11:6 states that we cannot please God without trusting Him, putting our faith in Him. Why? Because in doing so, we are letting Him know that we love Him because love is based on trust/faith. We love Him because He is faithful and in recognizing this, it pleases Him.
We will go through tough times. He is pleased when we trust that He will get us through.
We will be afraid. He is pleased when we trust Him despite our fears.
We will fail. He is pleased when we trust that He will pick us up.
We will let Him down. He is pleased when we trust that He will restore us.
With everything going on in the world, there is one thing we can do to please Him.
TRUST HIM. HAVE FAITH.
Today is a great day to put our faith in Him - to trust Him to come through. That will please Him and us as well and our relationship with Him will take one more step forward.