Just Trust God

Today I spoke with someone going through a fiery, humiliating trial.   They reported that other believers keep telling them, “Just trust God!”  For people who are trusting as best they know how, with no change in circumstance, these words offer only an opportunity for more feelings of failure.

The problem with this advice isn’t that it’s wrong, but misunderstood by those who speak it, and those who hear it.

We have ideas in our minds of how things are supposed to be.  God’s blessing looks like…. ???  Maybe we have spent the bulk of our days chasing after something less than He wanted us to have.  Maybe…  in his mercy, he takes away our dreams and human-based plans which we formed by internalizing what the world says matters, in order to give us more of Himself.

I know many people right now on the brink of different types of impending disaster.  Some are wringing their hands in fear, some are enjoying His peace amid the storm.  I feel like I live on that precipice most of the time, very aware of the seemingly insignificant turn of events that could bring my orderly world crashing down.  I have lived long enough to have seen a few of those times of crisis, and I’m sure there will be more.  I have also seen joy and peace on the faces of some, even though they found themselves at the bottom of the barrel.

So what does it mean.. Just trust God?

This past week I felt as if I had stepped into a huge blessing prepared for us by God.  We didn’t plan this, or know it was coming.  It has come with its own set of stresses and challenges, but it’s a still a Divine gift.  His fingerprint is all over it.  Will it be here tomorrow, just because He has given it today?  Not  necessarily.  Do I always know the reasons and the times for the courses of my life?  Most definitely not.  One thing that crystalized in my awareness though was that everything in my life that I am overflowing with thankfulness for right now, is a direct result of some bad decision, some wrong turn, and things I’d rather forget.  Through those times, I didn’t know they served any purpose other than to bring me shame and pain.  But there comes a moment when all the good and bad in your life are woven together into a beautiful NOW.

Just trust God…. to give you His mind for what He values most, for how much He loves you no matter what you have done or not done right, to bring good out of any situation, to see that HE is the highest prize we can rejoice in.  Nothing else we strive for in this life will last, except for the glory we give God and the love we pass on to others.

We have to let go of the outcome-based faith and trust Him to have our best interest in mind.   The hard times may work  a better good than the good times.

This week I read something so empowering in Isaiah.

“For this is what the Lord said to me with great power, to keep me from going the way of this people:  Do not call everything an alliance these people say is an alliance.  Do not fear what they fear; do not be terrified.  You are to regard only the LORD of Hosts as holy.  Only He should be feared; only He should be held in awe.  He will be a sanctuary..”

I know I do not want to go “the way of this people”… the way of the world, or lukewarm Christianity either one.  Yes, there are times God will prompt us to specifically pray through in victory against a situation.  But sometimes the painful situation we find ourselves in is exactly what we need, and someday we will thank Him for our suffering as well as our blessings.

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