How much is a lack of belief in the divine, really a lack of trust in the divine?

Here you are tapping into an important dimension of faith and belief in us. Those two are not the same. Faith is more provisional and belief is more absolute, at least when well‑developed through life experience. Faith is a bridge to belief, and for many will be as far as they can go in the relationship given we are unavailable to people directly to experience, and thus for them more an idea than a reality that is tangible when it comes to fellow human beings, but quite elusive when it comes to the divine and its workings. One of the biggest problems for would-be believers is developing trust in us, and that is because trust is needed for acceptance, as the same is true for a human-divine partnership, that trust will be a basic foundational requisite for a steady and rewarding relationship that is valued and counted on in being an everyday part of life and in one’s awareness at intervals. Many struggle to develop a strong belief in the reality of the divine, and it is often because they feel the disconnect that is the human condition, being born with no real awareness of prior relationships, especially with the divine realm. Children must be exposed to the idea of God and taught what it is and how to cultivate an understanding and belief that will be accepted as real. That is essential to get something from the experience because, without some level of belief, we cannot interact directly, because the free will of the nonbeliever is telling us our coming into their awareness would be going against their beliefs, and we must follow the rules of engagement, always. The fact you are in a tough testing ground, due to the rise of evil and the fact you are on your own through having free agency and free will, means we cannot intrude on your day, we cannot disturb you to tell you what to do, and we cannot do things for you except quite indirectly, mostly through inspiration to get you to do them for yourself as "a good idea." The end result of this freedom, and lack of concrete evidence of our existence, will likely be doubts and, in that climate, it is very difficult for people to develop trust in us when there is so much at stake in life, so many things that can go wrong, so many challenges demanding taking risks, doing hard work, often with meager reward. Many are nonbelievers because of the level of suffering, and to them this is a dealbreaker; if they cannot trust God to use its power on behalf of the downtrodden, that seems to warrant only one of two conclusions—either there is no God to begin with or the God that exists is uncaring, at a minimum aloof, or, at worst, an actual source of unpleasantness and adversity to challenge and punish, perhaps on a whim. Neither profile of the divine will naturally foster trust in us and, because inadequate trust is often a dealbreaker for the maintenance of a relationship, it is understandable people drift away and eventually stop seeking an interaction, and when lack of belief becomes predominant there is no need or reason to trust at all, and all that does is add to the gap that may become unbridgeable from then on.