Learning How to Trust God – Healing 2025

Summary

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How do you learn to trust in God again after feeling abandoned by Him? Bart Schuchts shares his powerful experience of forgiveness and talks about how to restore a child-like trust in our Heavenly Father.

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Reflective Study Guide Questions

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Lay all your cares about the future trustingly in God’s hands, and let yourself be guided by the Lord just like a little child.

St. Edith Stein

1. Why do you think Jesus tells us that child-like trust is key to entering the Kingdom of Heaven?

2 .Do you struggle to trust God like a child? What does this do to your relationship with Him?

3. What times in your life did you feel like the child who jumped out in trust and confidence but was dropped?

4. Are you withholding forgiveness from anyone in your life? Who? What is holding you back from finding that peace?

Text: Learning How to Trust God

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Hello friends! Welcome back. I’m Bart Schuchts and I want to share in this second talk about trust, learning how to trust God, and what do we do when trust has been broken. Let’s start with prayers I shared before.

Come Holy Spirit

I like to start every event with two catechism quotes and a saint quote catechism 2671. 2670, I’m sorry, says that the church. Invites us to call upon the Holy Spirit every day before and after every important action In 2671 says, simplest and most direct prayer is come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and in Kindle, in me the fire of your love In Saint Plan adventure, holy Spirit comes where he is loved, where he is invited, and where he is expected.

Let’s invite him. If you will place your hand upon your heart as we get started, and just pray this with me. Come Holy Spirit, fill the heart of your faithful in Kindle, in me, the fire of your love. Set my heart on fire with the transforming energy of the Holy Spirit’s Actions. Calm, holy Spirit.

Hello. Jesus, lead us into your life and into your truth, and into your ways. Father, we thank you for your love and your goodness, come Holy Spirit and bless this time and all these words do as only you do, and speak to each of us where we are. Come Holy Spirit, bless the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. Amen.

How Do We Trust?

So let’s talk about trust. How many of you remember when you were a little child and perhaps you or a sibling, or maybe as now as a parent, your child might do this, but as a child, how many of you remember standing on the top of the couch or the counter and your dad walks by or maybe your mom and you leap out in faith? Knowing that your father and mother is going to, is going to catch you.

How many of you remember doing that? I, I can remember it as a dad. I have four kids and they’re all, you know, 28, down to 19. Um, but when they were little, you know, I’d just be walking from the family room to the kitchen. And the corner of my eye, all of a sudden I see bam, my daughter or my son leaping off the couch and it’s like, oh, thank God I would catch them.

But what happens if we drop them? What happens if we leap out in life and we feel like the father has dropped us? What do we do? When trust has been broken. Now, just to be clear, the father doesn’t drop us. The father is with us always. He says, I’m with you always. I will never leave you nor forsake you. So God the father is incapable of dropping us.

However, life. Those we’ve placed our trust in can drop us. And many of us have experienced deep hurts where trust has been broken and it’s easy then to project that onto God, the Father, God, where were you? God, how come I leaped out and it didn’t seem like you caught me. But as we look at life and our journey, are there places and are there times when someone has let us down, where we leapt out like a child and felt like we were dropped? How do we trust. How was that trust restored?

Matthew 18:3

You know, Jesus said to enter in like a child. In fact, Matthew 18:3 Jesus said it this way. Truly, I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you’ll never enter the kingdom of heaven. Well. In experiencing the love of the father and the mercy and healing and redemption of Jesus, and the comfort and presence of the Holy Spirit I, and looking at this through the heart of a Father and looking at this through the heart of a child, this is what I believe the heart of Jesus messages.

Unless you put away the hardened places of your heart where you’ve tried to be an adult, apart from trusting in Jesus, unless you can enter in from that vulnerable place of trust like a child. You are unable to pass through to enter the kingdom of heaven. He’s not saying it in a harsh way. He’s saying it with the love of a father. Here is the secret of entering into my kingdom. Trust like a child. Enter in like a child. And maybe you’re like me and you’re just like, you know that sounds really good. But my trust has been broken more times than once.

What do you mean enter in like a child? What do you mean trust? My heart’s telling me Uhuh, man, I’m not going to do that. I don’t want to be hurt. The last time I trusted like that. My heart got broken. To this, I think Jesus would say to us, come to me like a child. Trust me. I won’t drop you. I love you.

Allow Jesus. To hold us like a child, or we can rest our head upon Jesus’ chest, much like John did in the midst of one of the most difficult times, as Jesus is announcing that he is going to leave where some might have felt abandoned. John drew all the closer and he laid his head on Jesus’ chest. What if you and I could trust like a child to lay our head upon Jesus’ chest and to say, Jesus, will you heal me?

But what do we do with the places where trust has been broken? What do we do? With those experiences in our life where we felt like that child who jumped out and felt like we were dropped. What do we do when our hearts have been broken and our trust has been shattered? We ask Jesus to heal. We ask Jesus to redeem. We ask Jesus to restore.

The Meaning of True Forgiveness

Let me share personal story related to this as a follow up to what I shared before about abandonment. I shared how my father left when I was five, and I grew up with a deep hatred for my father and anger towards my father. And even after I encountered the father’s love, you know, I went on this healing journey for years and in the first three years after that encounter that I had with the father.

Jesus was dealing with me about forgiving my dad, and I was like, no, there is no way that I’m going to forgive that man. Because see, I had a misunderstanding. I thought by forgiving my dad, I was saying that what he did was okay, and it was not okay. The pain that he caused my mother was not okay. The pain that he caused my siblings was not okay.

The pain that he caused me was not okay. The void that I grew up with of not having a father. Was not okay. I was not going to say it’s okay. Fine. I’ll forgive you. I remember one time I was reading in the scriptures and it said this. It said, unless you forgive, you’ll not be forgiven. And I remember putting my Bible down and I looked at everyone and I said, fine, then you don’t have to forgive me.

Which is quite silly. Jesus had already forgiven me. I’d already given my life to Jesus. I’d already received a lot of healing. I’d already come to encounter the father’s love. I’d already known the goodness of Jesus. Jesus had already paid for my sins through his death and resurrection, and he had already forgiven me and I had already received his forgiveness.

But here I was saying, okay, fine. If you’re saying I can’t be forgiven unless I forgive my dad, well then don’t forgive me because I’m not going to forgive my dad. It was because I had a misunderstanding. You see, true forgiveness is not saying it’s okay. We’re not saying it’s okay for dropping me it. We’re not saying it’s okay for betraying my trust.

We’re not saying it’s okay for rejecting me or abandoning me. We’re not saying any of these things are okay. You see, to truly forgive, we have to count the cost. This is what you’ve done to hurt me, but because Jesus has forgiven me, I’ll forgive you. It took me about three years to understand, but I finally got to the place where I was able to forgive my father, and I said, you know, Jesus, if you can heal me and all the brokenness and sin, then you can forgive my dad. And all of a sudden I had a compassion for my father and I forgave my father.

An Encounter With Forgiveness

Now, I didn’t realize till later that my brother Bob had also forgiven my father around the same time. And a few months later, I get a phone call from my brother Bob, and Bob says, Hey, Bart, I called Dad. I’m like, what? You called dad?

Yeah. And I invite him to a men’s weekend. Really? Yeah. And he’ll, he said, he’ll go, what? You’re kidding. I was amazed. Yeah. And I called Wayne our brother. He said, he’ll go, I called Dave our brother. He said, he’ll go, I called Rich our half brother. He said, he’ll go called Ken brother-in-law, Nick brother-in-law.

They said they’ll go, no way, Bob, you kidding me? All of you are willing to go to a men’s weekend. Yeah. And I knew if I called you and told you all that you’d want to go too, I said, you better believe I want to go. And here we all were on a men’s weekend in the mountains of North Carolina, beautiful summer day, summer weekend, and we’re sitting there in a session and the man is speaking, is talking about forgiveness.

And my dad’s sitting right next to me, a guy I don’t even know, who I called dad, sitting next to me. And this man is talking about forgiveness. And I had this longing in my heart for my father to own his sin and ask me to forgive him. In the middle of this man’s talk, he gives us a break and I’m standing there with my dad waiting for my dad to ask me to forgive him.

Minutes went by in silence and my dad never said anything. I was so mad. I went off storming mad. Came back and my brother and my dad were sitting under a gazebo on a beautiful sunny day. And I was not in the mood for small talk and they were in the middle of small talk. And I walk up and I said, okay, dad, we’re all here.

Why don’t you tell us? Why’d you cheat on mom? He said, okay. And he shared his whole story with us. I, and I had compassion for my dad, and I knew that Jesus had forgiven me. He can forgive my dad. And I looked at my dad and I said, dad, I want to let you know that I’ve already forgiven you because Jesus has forgiven me, I forgive you.

My dad had tears in his eyes and my brother Bob said, yeah, I’ve forgiven you too. And each of us we’re exchanging forgiveness and a lot of things happened after this. It’s a longer story, but basically my oldest brother was dying. And my father, my mother, my brothers, my sisters were all gathered at my brother Wayne’s house as Dave was slowly dying and all this healing was taking place in my family.

As my father looked at my mother and he said, Peggy, forgive me. Looked all of us, forgive me, each of us hugging and asking forgiveness as Jesus was doing this beautiful work of healing and restoration. My brother Dave passed away not long after this, and he had written notes in his bible, yellow highlights and little notes, and it was very obvious that Dave’s prayer and desire was that his sickness would bring healing to our whole family. And that’s what happened. Tremendous healing throughout our whole family.

We started going to men’s events together. My brothers and my brother-in-law, and my father for several years. It’s an annual event and Jesus was bringing so much healing and so much restoration though when my father passed away some years ago, more healing happened at his mass. And I was sitting there in the silence and I felt like God spoke to me in his still small voice, the same still small voice when I encountered the father and he said, Bart, I’m your father. I’m a father to the fatherless. I’m sitting at my dad’s funeral after all this healing and restoration, and I hear that same, same still small voice and God the father says to me, Bart, I am your father and I have your father, and I wept. But I wept out of joy because of all the healing and the restoration that Jesus did in my family.

He Is Here To Restore And To Redeem

You see, Jesus is in the redemption business. He comes to heal and to restore and to redeem. He takes that which is broken and lost, and he heals it and restores it, that his death on the cross. Where he was publicly scorned and shamed, naked, beaten, gasping for air. He did that for you and I to bring healing and restoration to redeem that which is lost and broken and that all you and I have to do is receive what he did for us.

So what do you do when you feel like you’ve been dropped and trust has been shattered? What do you do when you can’t even trust in God the father? You cry out to Jesus, the one who understands, the one who cried out on the cross, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And he breathed his last. He conquered sin evil in the grave. And he rose from the grave for you and I, and he sent us his spirit. The holy comforter to heal and restore to redeem.

So what do we do when trust has been broken? How do we trust in God? We receive what Jesus did for us and we ask him to heal, to restore, and to redeem. This is what Jesus came to do. Let’s close with prayer.

If you will, just close your eyes and allow yourself to feel, just to feel what you feel. How often do we give ourselves permission to feel? David said, bless the Lord. Oh my soul. Just allow yourself to feel.

Closing Prayer

Let me pray for us. Holy Spirit. I ask that you would reveal the places where we felt like we’ve been dropped, those places where trust has been broken, and I asked Jesus. That you would heal, that you would restore, that you would redeem. Thank you Jesus, for your life, for your mission, for your death, and for your resurrection.

Now I want to invite you to just stay there with your eyes closed and gaze upon Jesus. Imagine Jesus up on the cross, up on the hill, hung on a tree naked, beaten. Scorned shamed. They say he was so bloodied, he was hard to even recognize. I want you to sit there like next to Mary and John and gaze upon Jesus there on the cross. This is what he did for you. This is the price he paid to heal you. To restore, to bring you into relationship with he and the father, if you will. Just engage your holy imagination, your emotions, your desires, and just gaze upon him there on the cross. I’m going to be sour in a moment to gaze upon Jesus. There on the cross. Come Holy Spirit.

Jesus reveal what you want to reveal to us. Oh, Jesus. I ask you to heal the places within our hearts where trust has been broken and restore. Within our hearts. The trust in God, the trust in you. Come Holy Spirit.

Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all that you’re doing and all that you will do. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. God bless you. May I encourage you just to take some time to just be alone with Jesus and say, Jesus, heal these places within my heart where trust has been broken. God is good and he is with us always. He will never leave you nor forsake you. He is a good, good loving Father.

About Bart Schuchts