For most of my life it has been easy for me to trust people. Growing up I believed the best of people (even when that wasn’t the wisest move). If someone asked me to do something I trusted them that they had my best interest in mind or that they knew what they were talking about. I was disappointed at times, but it was just easier for me to trust people than to be skeptical.
Over time, my desire to trust has been poisoned. Betrayal from friends, manipulation from authority, things not turning out the way I thought they would, have deteriorated my desire to live a life of trust out.
The one relationship that I thought had not been affected was my relationship with God. If you know our story it has been highlighted by our desire to trust and follow God no matter what it looks like. The one constant has been trusting God and doing what we feel He is telling us to do. Over the last 4 months God has given us the opportunity to live out the value of trusting Him. When I transitioned off of staff at LBC, I was confident because it was what God had nudged us to do and even though there was no guarantee of the future, it felt great trusting Him. In my mind, I would take some time to rest, invest in my family, and then step into the next opportunity. All of that is accurate except I had a different timing than God did. He knew I needed to grow in my depth of trusting Him before He invited me into the next season. Over the last weeks I have had a small crisis of trust. Do I trust that God has a plan for me? Do I trust Him with my life, even if it takes time or isn’t what I want? Do I trust Him when finances are not as secure as I had hoped? Do I trust Him when the conversations aren’t the ones I would prefer? Do I trust Him with the process?
And then I was reminded of Proverbs 3:5-6. Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take.
I have trusted in God, but over this last season the truth that I have not trusted Him with my whole heart has been exposed. I trusted Him as far as my preference and comfort would go. I trusted Him as long as I still had options and I was in control of my decisions. I have realized that is easy to trust God as far as I understand Him and my situation, but it becomes more challenging when I can’t see around the corner or how it turns out. I am growing a new level of trust in this season that I need to trust Him with my whole heart, whole purpose, whole being. And if I pursue Him, He will not only give me a great future, He will show me which path to take.
Trusting God is a growing, maturing process. When we stop trusting, we start building limits to what we are willing to let God do in and through us. As I am doing the hard heart work of learning to trust God at a deeper level, I am finding it difficult to let go of self protection, self image, and control, but I am discovering a deeper peace, freedom and solidity.