I wrote yesterday about a class I had in 1999; the students were quiet and fearful.... I began to pray for them as broken and hurting people.

A few weeks later as they took their final exam, I watched them, fretted over them, and prayed for understanding--how could I help future students like this? God brought to my mind a Bible passage that I had learned to depend on a few years before; it had given me strength, confidence, and courage: Jeremiah 17: 5-8.

"This is what the Lord says: 'Cursed are those who put their trust in mere humans and turn their hearts away from the Lord. They are like stunted shrubs in the desert, with no hope for the future. They will live in the barren wilderness, on the salty flats where no one lives.

'But blessed are those who trust in the Lord and have made the Lord their hope and confidence. They are like trees planted along a riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water. Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought. Their leaves stay green, and they go right on producing delicious fruit.'" (New Living Translation)

When we do not trust in him, we trust in something or somebody else. In that state of mind, we depend on other people to give us stability. We look to others (who are, themselves, looking to others) for our self-image, and our emotional well-being suffers. We are like scrubby bushes, barely alive in the desert, because we have no stable place to sink our roots--no nourishment. One unstable Godless human is powerless to provide emotional stability to another.

So how do we “put our trust in him”? On purpose. We have to become deliberate about it, tell him we trust him and love him and put ourselves into his hands. He gladly wraps us up in those hands and gladly shows the way to live, in every circumstance, if we talk to him and listen to his heart, talking to ours.

http://connectionsgodandtheworld.blogspot.com/2005/12/i-wrote-yesterday-about-class-i-had-in.html