PDF Summary:Trusting God, by Jerry Bridges

When life gets difficult, it's natural to question whether God cares about your struggles or has your best interests at heart. In Trusting God, Jerry Bridges addresses these doubts by exploring God's character and how His attributes—including His wisdom, love, and sovereign power—manifest during times of hardship.

Bridges explains that trusting God requires understanding His providential care and recognizing that He uses adversity for our growth and His glory. This guide covers foundational truths about God's constant and total care, the role of faith and the Holy Spirit in building trust, and practical ways to cultivate trust through prayer, prudent action, and acceptance of God's design for your life. You'll learn how to trust God with both small everyday concerns and major life challenges.

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Cultivating Faith in God's Providence

Next, we’ll explore some foundational truths for cultivating trust and practical ways to practice trust.

Foundational Truths for Cultivating Trust

Bridges argues that God’s care is constant, total, and rules over everything. It is constant because He is always with you, total because He knows every detail about you, and sovereign because nothing can happen to you without His permission. His guidance is supremely beneficial and informed, and if you attempted to alter even a single element of what He has planned, you would only ruin it.

(Shortform note: Bridges’s argument that nothing can happen to you without God’s permission and that you would only ruin it by attempting to alter even a single element of what He has planned could be interpreted as a call to never resist suffering. This could lead to a fatalistic attitude that tolerates harmful situations. In Suffering and the Heart of God, Diane Langberg explains that counselors have seen this happen when sufferers believe that they would only ruin God’s plan by trying to change their situation.)

Next, we’ll discuss the basis and process of building trust.

Trust's Basis: Belief and Revelation

Bridges believes that reliance on God stems from having faith, which is rooted in truth. He explains that, in His sovereignty, God is active in all our situations, even when His methods are unclear to us. We have to recognize that God fulfills His beneficial intentions without being hindered. He oversees and controls every occurrence and deed, ensuring they always align with His supreme plan.

Bridges argues that trusting God involves the will, not emotions. We have to decide to trust Him, place our worries on Him, and always acknowledge our dependence on Him. We should also see past human means to God, who employs them, and trust Him in everyday details. If we develop trust in God during smaller hardships, we'll be better able to rely on Him during larger ones.

How Trusting God With Our Will Can Change Our Emotions

In How God Changes Your Brain, Andrew Newberg and Mark Robert Waldman explain that when a person deliberately and consistently focuses attention on a loving, benevolent image of God, this intentional mental practice repeatedly activates neural circuits in the prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex, which exert greater control over the limbic system and gradually quiet fear- and stress-related activity in the amygdala. Because of neuroplasticity, the neurons involved in this pattern of compassionate, God-focused awareness become more strongly connected, so over time the individual’s emotional reactions are literally reshaped—becoming calmer, more hopeful, and more resilient in the face of adversity as these strengthened circuits begin to respond automatically in challenging situations.

Trusting God: Faith and the Spirit

Bridges explains that trusting in God is a choice that requires belief and the Holy Spirit. Faith comes from the Spirit, and only the Spirit can animate God's Word within us and generate faith. We can either turn to Him for that, or let anxiety, resentment, or grief govern us. We are responsible for trusting Him in adversity, but we depend on the Holy Spirit to empower us.

(Shortform note: In You Are What You Love, James K. A. Smith argues that the Holy Spirit works through the habits we freely choose to form our hearts. He says that the Spirit works through the church’s liturgies, especially the repeated hearing of Scripture, to inscribe the biblical story into our imagination. This slowly recalibrates our deepest loves so that we come to incline toward God almost automatically, the way a well-trained heart “leans” without needing to deliberate.)

Practical Disciplines of Trust

Bridges emphasizes the importance of trusting God through good times and bad. God has control over everything, and He possesses infinite knowledge and compassion. He understands what benefits us most and is capable of making it happen. He lovingly uses our suffering for a purpose and only allows it when His endless love determines it's beneficial for us. God's design is often incomprehensible to us, so we need to trust Him even when we're unable to grasp it.

(Shortform note: Bridges’s argument that God lovingly uses all suffering and only allows it when it’s beneficial for us could be misapplied in ways that harm vulnerable people. For example, a person in an abusive relationship might believe that they must patiently accept all their suffering as lovingly planned by God rather than urgently seeking safety and help. In Suffering and the Heart of God, Diane Langberg warns that any teaching that tells a victim to stay in harm’s way is a misuse of the Word of God.)

Bridges also encourages trusting God regarding both the small things and the big things. We tend to have faith in God with the big things but try to handle the small things ourselves. However, if we learn to rely on God for the small things, we’ll be better prepared to rely on Him in the big things.

(Shortform note: To make trusting God in the small things a habit, try attaching a short prayer to a daily habit. For example, you could say, “I trust You with this small thing” every time you make coffee. This will help you make trusting God a reflex.)

Next, we’ll discuss how to internalize trust by cultivating heart attitudes and how to externalize trust through practical expressions.

Internalizing Trust: Approaches of the Inner Self

Bridges believes that part of trusting God means accepting ourselves as He made us. God gave us our unique talents and limitations to honor Him. If we struggle to accept ourselves, we are in conflict with God. Bridges explains that we must accept how God created us at our core—physically, mentally, and emotionally. We also must place our faith in God regarding our identity, regardless of our role in life.

(Shortform note: Bridges’s belief that we have a God-given core identity is not universally accepted. In Existentialism Is a Humanism, Jean-Paul Sartre argues that there is no God-given core identity. He explains that humans have no predetermined essence or nature. Instead, we must create our own identity through our choices and actions. Sartre’s view challenges the idea that we have a fixed set of talents and limitations.)

Our lives have been designed by the divine, though we shouldn't passively accept things as they are. We should take action to better our circumstances when we have a chance to glorify God. Bridges emphasizes that we must balance faith-driven attempts to better our circumstances with a faith-driven acceptance of those circumstances that are beyond our control. We're obligated to make wise choices or discern God's will. But our decisions don't impact God's design for us. God's design is supreme and includes our foolish decisions as well as our wise ones. God guides us incrementally. He doesn't reveal the entire roadmap for us immediately. We need to develop trust in Him for guidance.

(Shortform note: It can be difficult to know when to accept our circumstances and when to try to change them. One way to discern this is to pray about a particular change you’re considering. If you find that you’re growing in faith, hope, and love, then it may be a sign that you should pursue that change. If you find that you’re growing in self-absorption and agitation, then it may be a sign that you should accept your circumstances as they are.)

Externalizing Trust: Practical Expressions

Bridges argues that relying on God involves prayer and acting with prudence. Prudence involves employing all valid, biblically-approved methods available to you to prevent harm and to accomplish what you believe is the right outcome.

Divine sovereignty doesn't remove your obligation to pray or act prudently. God often acts through normal occurrences and the choices people make of their own will. He intends you to employ the resources He's provided to you. Prayer recognizes God's sovereign authority and our reliance on His intervention for us, while prudence means taking responsibility for using all lawful methods. However, your planning, endeavors, and wise actions won't succeed without God's favor.

God’s Providence and Human Responsibility

Bridges’s teaching on relying on God through prayer and prudent action is part of a larger Christian discussion on the doctrine of providence. In his book Providence, Paul Helm explains that God’s providence is the way he sustains and governs the world. Helm argues that God’s providence is compatible with human freedom and responsibility. He explains that God often works through secondary causes, such as natural laws and human actions, to accomplish his purposes. Helm also discusses the concept of concursus, which is the cooperation between God’s providence and human actions. He argues that God’s providence doesn’t negate human responsibility, but rather works through it.