We’ve all been there. Lying awake at 3 a.m. with our minds spinning through the day ahead. The difficult conversation we’re dreading. The decision we’ve been avoiding. The situation we can’t control no matter how many mental scenarios we rehearse. That particular brand of anxiety that starts writing the script before we’re even fully conscious.
And if we’re honest, a lot of our attempts at trust look like mental gymnastics with occasional “Lord, help me” thrown in for good measure. We’re trying to feel confident about our circumstances while our hearts are racing and our minds are cataloging everything that could go wrong.
Here’s what’s happening in those moments: We’re trying to trust God with our circumstances without first remembering who God actually is. We’re white-knuckling our way through trust as if it were something we could manufacture through sheer spiritual willpower.
But trust doesn’t work that way. We keep asking, “Can I trust God with this?” when perhaps the better question is: “Who is God, really?” That first question keeps us trapped in our circumstances, evaluating God’s trustworthiness based on outcomes we can see. The second question invites us into something deeper, an anchoring that holds when everything else feels unmoored.
The psalmist understood this: “Those who know your name trust in you, for you, LORD, have never forsaken those who seek you” (Psalm 9:10, NIV throughout). Notice the progression here. Trust doesn’t emerge from thin air or from willing ourselves into spiritual confidence. Trust flows from knowing. And not just knowing about God, but knowing His character — His name, His nature, His ways.
This is the foundation we often skip in our hurry to feel better about uncertain situations.
The Character That Holds Us
When Scripture talks about God’s “name,” it’s referring to His revealed character, the essence of who He is. Throughout the biblical narrative, God doesn’t just tell His people what to do; He shows them who He is. At the burning bush, He reveals Himself as “I AM WHO I AM” (Exodus 3:14) — the self-existing, eternally present One. To Moses on Mount Sinai, He proclaims His name: “The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness” (Exodus 34:6).
These aren’t abstract theological concepts meant for seminary papers. They’re the weight-bearing walls of faith when our own understanding crumbles.
Isaiah 26:3-4 builds on this foundation: “You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you. Trust in the LORD forever, for the LORD, the LORD himself, is the Rock eternal.” The repetition of “the LORD, the LORD” emphasizes His covenant name, Yahweh — the God who binds Himself to His people through faithful promise. The peace Isaiah describes isn’t the absence of chaos but the presence of an unchanging Rock in the middle of it.
When we know God as the Rock eternal, we’re not trying to manufacture certainty about our circumstances. We’re resting on the certainty of His character.
The Limitations of Our Understanding
“Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5). This verse often gets weaponized against legitimate questions or reasonable concerns, as if faith means checking our brains at the door. But that misses the deeper wisdom here.
The Hebrew word for “understanding” (binah) refers to discernment, insight, the ability to distinguish and make sense of things. It’s not that our capacity for understanding is bad, it’s that it’s limited. We see through the narrow lens of our experience, our cultural moment, our personal pain and preference. We evaluate situations based on incomplete information and shortsighted timelines.
“Leaning” on our own understanding means making it our primary support system, the thing that determines whether we can move forward. It’s the difference between consulting a map and worshiping it. We need our God-given ability to think and reason, but when that becomes our ultimate security, we’re building on shifting sand.
Trusting with “all your heart” means allowing God’s character — His faithfulness, His wisdom, His loving purposes — to be the foundation from which we think and act. Our understanding becomes a tool we hold lightly rather than a lifeline we clutch desperately.
This matters because life regularly hands us situations our understanding cannot process. Medical diagnoses that make no sense. Relationships that fracture despite our best efforts. Vocational doors that slam shut when we’re certain we heard God’s leading. In these moments, leaning on our understanding means we’ll either force explanations that don’t fit or spiral into despair because nothing makes sense.
But when we trust in God’s character first, we can hold our confusion without losing our footing.
What God’s Character Reveals
So what exactly does it mean to know God’s character in a way that fosters trust? Scripture shows us several essential truths:
- God is faithful. “God is faithful, who has called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord” (1 Corinthians 1:9). His faithfulness isn’t contingent on our performance or circumstances. Even when we are faithless, He remains faithful, “for he cannot disown himself” (2 Timothy 2:13). This means the God who called you into relationship doesn’t abandon you when things get complicated.
- God is good. “The LORD is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made” (Psalm 145:9). His goodness is woven into His nature. Even when our circumstances don’t feel good, we can trust that God’s fundamental character is oriented toward our flourishing in ways we may not yet see.
- God is wise. “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!” (Romans 11:33). His wisdom operates on a plane beyond our capacity to fully grasp. This becomes a comfort rather than a frustration when we remember that limited perspective always breeds anxiety.
- God is present. “The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you” (Deuteronomy 31:8). Emmanuel — God with us — is not just a Christmas doctrine but a daily reality. Even in the valley of the shadow of death, we need not fear, for He is with us (Psalm 23:4).
These character traits aren’t spiritual platitudes. They’re the sturdy scaffolding that holds us when we can’t hold ourselves.
Begin Your Day Anchored in God’s Character
Here’s where this moves from theological understanding to daily practice: How we begin our day shapes how we meet our day.
When we start our mornings immediately reaching for our phones — scanning news, checking email, scrolling social media — we’re essentially asking our circumstances to tell us who we are and what we should feel. We’re leaning on our limited understanding before we’ve anchored ourselves in God’s unlimited character.
But when we begin by refocusing on who God is, something shifts in how we approach everything else.
This doesn’t mean lengthy quiet times are morally superior or that busy parents with crying toddlers are spiritually deficient. It means that even in brief moments — while the coffee brews, during the commute, in those first conscious thoughts — we can turn our attention Godward.
We can pray: “God, You are faithful. You are sovereign. You are good. You are with me. Whatever today holds, You hold me.”
We can read a psalm that declares God’s character, letting ancient poetry reset our perspective.
We can simply breathe and remember: The God who spoke galaxies into being, who held the Israelites through wilderness, who raised Jesus from death — this God goes with us into Monday morning meetings and difficult conversations and medical appointments.
When challenges arise — and they will — we don’t face them as isolated individuals trying to figure everything out on our own. We face them as people anchored in the character of a faithful, sovereign, good, wise, present God. This changes our internal posture from frantic problem-solving to grounded trust.
The difference is palpable. Anxiety decreases not because our circumstances improve but because our foundation holds. We can acknowledge difficulty without being consumed by it. We can grieve losses without losing hope. We can face uncertainty without needing immediate answers.
The Ongoing Journey
Learning to trust God’s character over our own understanding isn’t a one-time decision but an ongoing practice. We’ll have days when trust feels easy and days when it feels impossible. We’ll have seasons when God’s faithfulness seems obvious and seasons when His silence feels deafening.
But here’s the good news: God’s character doesn’t fluctuate with our feelings about it. The Rock remains solid whether we can currently feel it beneath our feet or not. And each time we choose to return to what we know of God’s nature — even when our circumstances seem to contradict it — we’re strengthening the muscle of trust.
Those who know His name trust in Him. Not because trust is easy, but because He has never forsaken those who seek Him. That’s not wishful thinking. That’s the testimony of Scripture, the witness of the cloud of faithful people who’ve gone before us, and the promise that holds us still.
So we begin again tomorrow, anchoring ourselves in who God is before we face what the day holds. And that makes all the difference.
The practice of waking early to seek God’s presence is woven into the fabric of God’s Word. From the Gospels to the Psalms, from the wisdom literature to the historical narratives, the Bible resounds with the call to seek God early, to set the tone of our day with prayer, and to surrender the unfolding hours to his presence.
In The GREAT Morning Revolution: Daily Spiritual Practices for Meaningful Moments with God, Tara Beth Leach shares how she adopted the ritual of rising early and discovered the transformative power of mornings with God — and in The GREAT Morning Revolution Bible Study Guide (plus Streaming Video) she invites you to do the same. With practical guidance, spiritual encouragement, and a structured-yet-flexible approach, she shows you how to find sacred serenity in the early hours that will reshape your perspective and deepen your relationship with God.
Tara Beth Leach is a pastor, preacher of the Word, and writer. She speaks widely at conferences, retreats, and universities across the country on Women in Ministry, Church Leadership, and the call to be a Radiant Witness. She is the Senior Pastor at Good Shepherd Church in Naperville, IL and previously served at Christ Church in Oakbrook and as Senior Pastor of First Church of the Nazarene of Pasadena(”PazNaz”) in SoCal. She is a graduate of Olivet Nazarene University and Northern Theological Seminary and has authored three books, including Emboldened and Radiant Church. Tara Beth is theco-founderof Propel Ecclesia and co-host of The Pastors Table podcast. She has two beautiful and rambunctious sons and has been married to the love of her life, Jeff, since 2006.
