Doubtful Trust in God

I’m a little late this week getting to Sunday’s lesson.  Sorry about that.  Still catching up after Gustav.  At any rate, I’ve thought about this issue a lot.  Mainly through my own experiences grappling with whether I really trust God, or is it just something I say?  I’m sure I’m not alone in feeling this way.  Someones as Christians, I think we refrain from being honest about our struggles, and this is one issue where I am going to be vulnerable, as much as it exposes me for occasionally wondering “why?”  I know we are studying Proverbs (specifically this week, Proverbs 10, 15, 16, 18-20, 29), but there are some other verses I think are helpful.  Read them, then see my thoughts below that.

Mark 11:22-24 (NASB) 22And Jesus answered saying to them, “^(A)Have faith in God. 23“^(B)Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says is going to happen, it will be granted him. 24“Therefore I say to you, ^(C)all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they will be granted you.

Romans 14:23 (NKJV)- But he who doubts is condemned if he eats, because he does not eat from faith; for whatever is not from faith is sin.

Matthew 6:25-34 (NASB) 25“^(AF)For this reason I say to you, do not be ^(AG)worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26“^(AH)Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? 27“And who of you by being ^(AI)worried can ^(AJ)add a single hour to his life?  28“And why are you ^(AK)worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin,  29yet I say to you that not even ^(AL)Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these.  30“But if God so clothes the ^(AM)grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? ^(AN)You of little faith!  31“Do not ^(AO)worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’  32“For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for ^(AP)your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.  33“But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and ^(AQ)all these things will be added to you.  34“So do not ^(AR)worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Okay.  So these are just a few verses out of many, many verses that deal with faith and trust.  You first learn to trust God when you come to Him by faith, right?  When you accepted Christ as your Savior, you accepted Him as your Lord.  Meaning you trusted that, as He says, He has a plan for your life, plans to prosper and not harm you.  You trusted that Jesus is exactly who He said He was, and that He died in our place as payment for our sins.  You trusted that He would never leave or forsake you, and that He will be with you always, even unto the end of the age.  You trusted that nothing can separate you from the love of God, not death, not life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, not height, nor depth, or any creatures.  You trusted that if you don’t lean on your own understanding, but acknowledge Him in all your ways, He would direct your paths.  You trusted that if you would seek first the kingdom of God, He would grant you the desires of your heart.   Of course, the desires of your heart change when you start living your life in accordance with God’s will and plan, but that’s for another blog at another time. 

Suffice it to say that I’ve given you a long list of how much you trusted God when you were saved, through no effort of your own, but through His grace.  And His grace is sufficient, right?  Paul said he counted it all joy, and he meant all the trials and tribulations because we also know that trials and tribulations produce perseverance, perservance produces character, and character produces proven hope, and proven hope does  not disappoint, right?  You can look up the exact verses yourself.  I’ve just memorized a bunch of them, but can never remember the exact references.

Wow.  After that, it seems hard to doubt our trust in God.  But, we are human, and so we do doubt it at times.  Why?  Because it appears the wicked are winning, even prospering.  It appears that those who have harmed no one are harmed greatly.  It appears that, while we are trying to live our lives in a way that demonstrates our faith in God, great trials and tribulations keep happening to us.  It appears that, while we may pray for a mate, our prayers go unanswered.  The key here, I think, is perspective.

We look at life from our own perspective.  To accept God’s word as being absolute truth, without error, requires humility.  We either believe the Word, or we don’t.  If we believe the Word, we cannot look at present circumstances from our perspective.  We have to look at it from His.  His ways are higher than ours, right?  He has a plan.  Always.  Without fail.  Without exception.  He plans to grow us spiritually, and some of us require different circumstances in which to blossom, much like different plants need different soils or water levels. 

For me, I’m a slow learner.  In the past, I’ve tried to move things along when I thought God was either not listening, or too slow.  For awhile, I believed that I had to act in order to accomplish things.  While that is true in a general sense, it’s just a bad idea to move forward when you haven’t heard from God that you are doing His will in His time.  Of course, my doing things my way has never worked out.  So, I learned.  Some really harsh lessons.  I took a hard look at myself and realized I said I trusted God in every situation, and even gave Him some of my situations to handle.  Then almost immediately took them back when He didn’t act soon enough to suit me.  Which really meant I didn’t trust God.  And I knew the blessings that follow when you trust God!  Have you ever been there?

One day, in 2000, my whole life collapsed.  Everything I thought I had, I lost.  Turns out those things were things I had placed before God.  They were idols.  (See, I TOLD you I’d be vulnerable here!)  I don’t like admitting these things, especially on the Web, but I have a feeling I’m not alone in this.  Am I?  You tell me.  Can you be honest enough to admit that you didn’t really place God first in your life?  That you didn’t really trust Him to look out for you?  That maybe you placed your trust in someone else to take care of you? 

I learned a lot about myself during that incredibly rough time.  I learned that money didn’t matter because God always provided.  I learned that having a spouse was not the end-all, be-all of my identity because my identity was in Christ.  l learned that how I handled the circumstances would reflect what I really believed.  I learned that my actions meant more to the others watching me than any of my words.  I learned that submission to God’s plan was the very best path I could take.  I learned to be content.  Always.  Even when the circumstances were bad.  Because He was with me.  Through the storms.  Through the times when I thought someone emblazoned a big, fat “L” on my forehead because I was such a loser.  Through the times when I did nothing but cry in my prayer closest for relief from the pain.  Those were times when I could feel His actual presence, wrapping His arms around me as He told me in my spirit that He loved me and that I was becoming exactly the woman He envisioned I’d be.  I’m not there yet as I’m a work in progress, but I’m further along now than I used to be.  It’s a journey, one that is going to take a lifetime to complete, but along the way, I’ve learned the most important lesson:  Trust and obey.  Just that.  Trust Him that He is love and truth and that He will not steer you in the wrong direction.  Obey whatever He commands, even when it doesn’t make sense from your own perspective.

I’ll give you one example.  My husband and I were divorcing after a long, loveless dead marriage.  He didn’t love me, and he was honest enough to tell me.  He wanted to leave to find his own happiness, that marriage was more than he had signed for, and so he wanted to be single.  I was mad.  Really, really mad.  I had put him through school, working long hours, so that when he finished, I could finish my education.  Six months before that was to happen, he was gone.  And I had a talk with God.  It was clear to me that God said, “Be his friend.”  I raged at God, and said, “Do you KNOW the things he has done to me???”  The answer remained the same.  Still raging, I called my pastor to complain about it all.  My pastor told me he had been praying, and asked me to read Hosea.  I said (still mad, of course), “Okay.  Fine.”  After reading Hosea, I came to my senses and the realization that I needed to trust God with this, and I needed to obey.  Promptly. 

I began acting like a true friend to my soon-to-be ex-husband.  After a few weeks, he began to soften, and fearing that he could love me (yes, this is a true story!), he begged to be let off from my friendship attempts.  I had learned by then that you can’t force someone else to behave properly, so I agreed.  I kept things pleasant and cordial, told him I was praying for him, but that he was free to make his own decisions. 

One evening, I felt led to give him Charles Stanley’s book, “The Blessings of Brokenness.”  I told him that I couldn’t make him read it, but that I had to do what God wanted, and God wanted me to give him this book.  Well, around 1:00 in the morning, he called me, sobbing and heartbroken.  He didn’t make it past the first chapter before he found himself on his knees, asking Jesus to truly be his Savior and Lord.  Over the course of the next couple of weeks, he took the time to compose a long email to me, asking forgiveness for a laundry list of things he had done to hurt me and our marriage.  It was incredible, and I still have it.  It was written from a contrite and humble heart, and I was so blessed by it.  It was healing for us both.  We still divorced because he believed that the best way to show me he cared for my happiness was to let me go.  We parted as friends, and with a legal document hardly more than a page long.  That was eight years ago.  We are friends, and we have been kind to one another since the time I decided to trust God and obey Him. 

This story isn’t meant to generate stuff about marriage and divorce, either.  It is simply to illustrate what can happen when you fully trust God.  I’m also not downplaying that really bad things happen to people.  I just want everyone to see that if you really have faith, it needs to be the kind of faith that will withstand the hot fires of trials and tribulations.  Not a faith that blows in the wind, depending on how you feel that day. 

Is this hard?  Of course it is.  Is it impossible?  Of course not.  Nothing is impossible with God.  And you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you.  God accomplishes mind-blowing things if you allow your heart to be opened to His purpose and plan and used according to His will.  Does this mean you give up your wants?  Not really.  You will find that the closer your relationship is to God, the more your wants (desires) become pure and holy, and the more you find yourself with the mind of Christ.  This means seeking the kingdom of God FIRST.  What you eat, what kind of job you have, where you live, or what style of clothes are on your back.  God knows what you need.  There is no need to be anxious.  Be anxious in NOTHING, but go to Him with your needs.  He can provide the answers to your need better than a parent, a child, a spouse, an employer, or the government. 

I want to close by saying that God understands your doubts and fears.  A doubt is a fear of some kind, right?  He understands we are flawed humans with limited foresight.  He loves us anyway.  He gave us the greatest gift available:  His Son.  What more do we need to know in order to trust Him? 

Have a great week, and I’ll see you here next week!

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