The only way that a person can learn to trust Hashem is if he learns to see Hashem active in his life. And one of the exercises that I find very helpful is to begin studying Hashem’s involvement in my life. In fact, as an exercise, starting tomorrow morning try to find at least 10 times where Hashem intervened in your life. You’re not looking for major cataclysmic situations; you’re looking for the very small things. Like a fellow comes over to you right after davening and bends your ear for five minutes, or you’re caught behind a school bus that seems to take forever or your neighbor for some reason leaves the newspaper on the driveway where he never does and you happen to read the headline there. If you begin keeping your eyes open you’ll find many, many minor situations that clearly were orchestrated. Someone put the thought into that person’s head to approach me right after davening, someone made sure that my neighbor would for some reason leave the paper there.
Understanding that Hashem is intimately involved in the running of my life is the understanding of being able to trace and see Hashem and learning to trust in Hashem. We’re not looking for the why’s behind it, we’re just looking for the what. And if you train yourself to find Hashem actively involved in your life then you can begin learning to trust in Hashem. But if you don’t learn to see Hashem in your life trusting in Hashem is foolhardy, because Hashem isn’t there. Learning to see Hashem is the first step, then I can learn to understand why it is that Hashem does what He does.
