Trusting God in the Unknown (Part 1)
When Life Takes a Turn You Never Expected
Sometimes the moments that deepen our faith the most are the ones we never would have chosen.
Trusting God in the unknown is easy to talk about in theory.
It becomes much harder when life takes a turn you never expected.
This was a reader-requested series, and I’ve been thinking and praying about how to approach it honestly.
Because the truth is, I’m not writing this as someone who has everything figured out.
I’m writing as someone who has had to learn what trusting God really looks like when life doesn’t unfold the way you thought it would.
If I’m honest, for much of my earlier life, I would have described myself as Christian-ish.
I believed in God.
I went to church.
Faith was part of my life.
But a deep, personal relationship with Christ, where He was truly the center of my life, just wasn’t there yet.
Life was moving along in a direction that felt stable and predictable.
And then my marriage began to fall apart.
At the time, I was desperate to save it. I prayed harder than I ever had before. I sought counsel. I cried out to God in ways I never had.
My prayer was simple:
God, please fix this.
But what I didn’t realize at that moment was that while I was trying to save the marriage…
God was saving me.
The hunger I developed for His presence didn’t come from spiritual discipline at first.
It came from desperation.
From realizing that the things I thought would hold my life together… couldn’t.
Looking back now, I can see that season differently.
What felt like one of the most painful seasons of my life became the beginning of a much deeper relationship with God than I had ever experienced before.
Sometimes the unimaginable doesn’t just change our circumstances.
Sometimes it changes our relationship with God.
When the Unimaginable Happens
Before we talk about trusting God in uncertain seasons, we have to acknowledge the moments that shake us the most.
The moments we never saw coming.
Because for many of us, the real test of trust doesn’t begin with small decisions or leaps of faith.
It begins when something happens that completely rearranges the life we thought we were building.
A diagnosis.
A betrayal.
A divorce.
A tragic loss.
These are not small disappointments.
These are the kinds of moments that rearrange a life overnight.
And when the unimaginable happens, faith stops being theoretical.
It becomes personal.
Very personal.
Because many of us assumed that if we prayed, lived right, and followed God faithfully, life would unfold in a certain way.
Not perfect.
But stable.
Predictable.
Safe.
And when that expectation breaks, it doesn’t just shake our circumstances.
It can shake our understanding of God.
Questions surface that we may not always say out loud:
God, how did this happen?
Where were You in this?
Did I miss something?
Did I hear You wrong?
Why?
These questions don’t make you faithless.
They make you human.
Even some of the most faithful people in scripture wrestled with seasons like this.
David cried out in the Psalms:
“How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?”— Psalm 13:1
Job lost nearly everything in a matter of days.
Joseph was betrayed by his brothers and imprisoned for years for a crime he didn’t commit.
None of them expected their stories to unfold the way they did.
Trusting God when life is going well is one thing.
Trusting Him when something unimaginable has happened requires a deeper kind of faith.
Not the kind that pretends everything is fine.
But the kind that slowly chooses to believe that God is still present, still sovereign, and still good…even when we cannot see how.
Leaning Into the Maker, Not Just the Matter
One thing I’ve noticed about myself, and honestly about many of us, is that when something hard happens, our attention immediately goes to the matter.
The problem.
The situation.
The thing that went wrong.
We lean into questions like:
Why is this happening?
How do I fix this?
How do I make this stop?
Those questions are human.
But if we stay there too long, they can slowly consume our focus.
In seasons like this, what we often need most is not to lean into the matter.
We need to lean into the Maker.
The One who sees the full story when we can only see the moment.
Job Seasons
Sometimes life doesn’t just hand us one difficult circumstance.
Sometimes we enter a season where it feels like one thing after another.
A loss.
A setback.
Another unexpected turn.
And before we’ve had time to recover from the first thing, the next thing arrives.
Scripture gives us a picture of seasons like this through the story of Job.
Not just one hardship.
But wave after wave.
The kind of season where you find yourself asking,
God… what is happening?
Those are the moments when our faith is stretched the most.
Not simply because something hard happened.
But because it’s one hard after another and you don’t even have a moment to catch your breath, to rebuild or heal from the last thing…it’s brutal.
Trusting God Through Community
Another thing I’ve learned in seasons like this is that trusting God has also meant learning to trust people again.
And if I’m honest, that hasn’t always been easy.
When life delivers painful experiences, especially in relationships, it’s very natural to become guarded.
To withdraw.
To handle things alone.
But faith was never meant to be lived entirely in isolation.
It’s the presence of others who understand through experience. Or the genuine love and encouragement from those who don’t.
Moments like that remind me that while God meets us personally in our pain, He often cares for us through the presence of others.
Sometimes, part of trusting God in the unknown means allowing Him to place the right people around us.
People who can pray with us.
Encourage us.
And remind us we’re not walking through the unknown alone.
Bringing Our Real Emotions to God
Another important part of trusting God in difficult seasons is learning to bring our real emotions to Him.
Not just the polished ones.
The honest ones.
The anger.
The hurt.
The rejection.
The confusion.
This was actually something I had to learn personally.
During a particular season, one of the unexpected things my Christian therapist helped me work on was how I approached God in prayer.
I realized that I often came to God in the way I thought I should feel… not in the way I actually felt.
I thought I needed to sound positive for God.
Which, when you really think about it, is a little crazy.
God already knows what we’re feeling.
But somehow I had convinced myself that I needed to approach Him with the “right” words and the “right” attitude.
What my therapist gently helped me see is that God isn’t asking for a polished version of us.
He invites our honesty.
The Psalms are filled with raw prayers.
David didn’t hide his emotions from God.
He brought them directly to Him.
And after we pour out our hearts, we can ask God for what we need.
Not always for the entire season.
Sometimes just for the day.
Strength for today.
Peace for today.
Wisdom for today.
Grace to take the next step today.
Prayer doesn’t always have to be long or elaborate.
Sometimes it’s as simple as:
God, I’m hurting.
God, I’m tired.
God, help me get through today.
And often that kind of honest prayer is where deeper trust begins to grow.
A Question to Sit With
Has there ever been a moment in your life when something happened that you never imagined or planned for?
How did that season affect your trust in God and your relationship with Him?
If you’re comfortable sharing, I’d love to hear in the comments.
Next week, we’ll explore another side of this conversation:
Trusting God when the life you imagined, prayed for, and worked for doesn’t happen.
So good! I also think our trust in God evolves. We msy trust Him in one area or a few others until we learn to trust completely. Thankful that God doesn't require trust, just faith. He knew it may take us a minute as it comes through relationship.