Trust Exercises with God

• by Amanda Beres posted March 19, 2025

  Amanda Beres is a  writer and freelance editor based in Rhode Island. She has a Master's in Professional Writing and Communication and has worked with The Global Poetics Project and Massachusetts Department of Agriculutral Resources.

I heard something interesting a few weeks ago. It hit me, and I felt the need to share it. Every Tuesday night, my church holds a prayer meeting. A few weeks ago, as we were worshiping, singing the song I Trust In God by Maverick City, we came to the line, “Perfect submission. All is at rest.” That line seemed to resonate that night for all of us. I know it did for me. A woman then stood up and reached for the microphone on the altar. We can share what the Lord has spoken to us during these prayer meetings, and she felt the Lord wanted us all to hear what He said. I don’t know her name, but what she revealed stuck with me. She said, “ I heard the Lord say, ‘What if perfect submission looks like letting Me love you well.” Needless to say, I was floored. 

There’s this idea, especially in the American church, is that we must keep striving. We think we must constantly work to submit ourselves to God. While this is partially true, submitting ourselves to God, can also mean allowing ourselves to rest in His presence. So, I repeat her statement, what if perfect submission looks like letting God love us well? It leads to the question, what is perfect submission to God anyway? Often, we think of perfect submission as bringing ourselves lower, so He can become greater. However, we each have a personal relationship with God. So it would then make sense that perfect submission looks different for all of us. 

Perfect submission comes down to trusting God and resting in Him. Which between us, I struggle with, not so much the trusting but the resting in Him part. See, I like to get into Bible study and worship, dance, jump, and give my energy to the Lord. But that only works, if I can replenish my energy. How do I do that? By resting in the Lord. There’s only one problem, I can’t stand being still! Let me share another life story with you. 

Let’s go back in time. The date is May 13th, 2023, graduation day for the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth (UMass Dartmouth). I just received my Master’s in Professional Writing and Communication after two years of studying. Well, actually after four years of college to get my bachelor’s degree right out of high school, and going right into graduate school as the instructor of record for Business Communication at UMass Dartmouth, then I graduated. In between all of this, I lost my dad, and my Papi, and watched my Noni go through Alzheimer's and my grandfather go through dementia. Needless to say, it was a lot. 

So now we reach March 13th, 2023 UMass Graduation Day! The day is wonderful, my family and friends are there, and we go out to dinner…just a great day. My mom and I were also preparing to move back to Rhode Island at the same time Things felt like they were falling into place. I had my plans set that after we moved, I would dive in looking for work, and start my path towards being an editor. Of course, I had no idea at the time, that God would have me do this. I was looking at my plans after all. 

And that’s the first thing with trusting God. You can’t look at your plans or your understanding. The Bible says in Proverbs 3:5-6, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways submit to Him and He will make your paths straight.” And that’s where I got caught up, and where I still do at times. See God allows us to make plans for the future, but He ultimately has the last say. It all comes back to free will. In my case, as I looked for work, I forgot He told me I was going to rest for a while, and freaked out when I spent a year without a job. 

If I’m being honest, I applied for close to three hundred jobs… and didn’t get a single one. Oh,I didn’t stop trusting God, but I forgot to rest in Him. I forgot that He was doing the work.  Now I know the Bible says in Psalm 46:10, “Be still and know that I am God.” But I need to do something right? I mean, I can’t just do nothing, and let God do all the work…wait? That’s kinda the whole point, isn’t it? See, the thing about 2023-2024 for me, is that God was letting me rest. I had been going on ten and hadn’t stopped! But in that season, the only thing God asked of me, was my time. He always has my time, but in that season, He had all of it! 

This meant I could learn to trust Him! I leaned on Him in ways I never had before! But this also meant I was on an emotional rollercoaster. I had no idea what God was doing, why things didn’t appear to change, or what was next. All I knew was that He had a plan. And what a plan it was!  Let me give you a rundown of everything that happened in me and around me during the fall of 2023 through the summer of 2024 in a particular order

• I rested 

• I found my home church 

• I found my young adult Christian group 

• I began to shed guilt and fear

• I rested

• I found my ministry 

• I built my blog

• I rested

• I created convenient friendships

• I grew my trust in God

• I learned to give up my plan for God’s better one

• I rested

• I got the job that was the best fit for me

• I had my first freelance editing gig

• I reconnected with a friend who wanted to reconnect with her faith 

• And, I can’t stress this enough… I RESTED

Of course, I can’t list everything God did for me in that year. It was honestly too much and my head felt like it was spinning. But that’s what trusting God can feel like! After all, the Bible is a lamp unto our feet, and a light unto our path, and a lamp only illuminates so much. In this time, God was showing me how important it was for me to replenish myself in Him. And He’s still doing it! 

For two years, I had burned myself out at both ends. For even longer, I just kept going, didn’t stop, and distracted myself. God knew I needed rest. Now, He is bringing restoration! But once again, it’s a process of trust. Let me tell you, trusting God, is not always easy. Scratch that, it’s rarely easy. Because He doesn’t tell you everything! Oh how nice it would be for Him to come down, sit on our beds, and tell us exactly what to do and how it’s going to go. But then, where would faith come in? I mean, Hebrews 11:1 says “Now faith is the confidence of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen.” Yep. I know. That can be a lot. Welcome to trusting God! But let me tell you, it’s a blessing living out my life verse Jeremiah 29:11  “For I know the plans I have for you”, declares the Lord. “Plans to prosper you “and not harm you. Plans for a hope and a future”. 

This now comes back to the question of what perfect submission looks like. Well, it’s going to look different for everyone, because we all have a different relationship with God. We all have different lived experiences. So rather than ask what perfect submission looks like as a whole,  maybe ask, what perfect submission looks like for you. For me, I could phrase it like this:

• What if perfect submission looks like trusting the people God has put in my life, truly do care for me? 

• What if perfect submission looks like accepting the blessing God wants to give me?

• What if perfect submission looks like allowing myself to sit with the questions I don’t have answers to yet, and may never have answers to? 

Ask yourself what God has been tugging at in you. Ask where in your life have not allowed God in. If you take anything away from my story, let it be to trust God with everything you have. Oh, there will be tears, and you might feel like you're lost. But that’s just God asking you to step out of the boat, and onto the waters. There is so much He has for you. It’s a wild ride, but a beautiful ride. And believe me when I tell you this isn’t the end of my story. I hope this blesses you today!

• Amanda