Trust in the Lord

Trust in the Lord

 

            Children are truly a blessing from the Lord, aren’t they?  I love children and celebrate in the joy of now being a first-time aunt.  I look forward in eager expectancy to the birth of a new little miracle in October… my first niece, Chloe Grace.  Children can teach us a lot too, can’t they?  Reflect with me upon the unquestioning faith of a child.  Everyone has their own sentiments about Santa Clause, but in my family, as a child, I grew up believing in Santa Clause.  A child doesn’t question how a man can slide down a chimney and get back up, how reindeer can fly, how toys for all the children in the world can fit on one sleigh.  He simply accepts it and believes it because it’s what someone told him is true. 

As that child grows up though and becomes an adult, he gains a more analytical mind.  Everything suddenly has to make sense now instead.  I remember in high school, I couldn’t accept the answer to a problem unless I knew why it was the answer and how to get to that conclusion.  As adults, we become like Euclid, the famous geometry genius of old who proved every geometry theorem.  (Yes, algebra, geometry, biology, and chemistry were favorite subjects of mine.)  We need proof that something is true. 

At the close of January, I shared with you all that the Lord was teaching me a lesson on hope in this new season He’s brought me into.  Well, now He’s moving me onto a lesson on trust.  How to return to my child-like faith and accept what He tells me to be true, simply because He tells me it’s so.  Trust is my new virtue I’m learning to embrace.

As I entered this new season of spiritual growth after a major breakthrough three months ago, my spiritual life was always moving.  There was always something the Lord was asking me to do to take me farther along in my journey with Him and to mature me further in His ways.  But several weeks ago, all that changed.  Now I’ve found that He’s brought me into what I call an interim period, a time of waiting for direction from Him, of simply listening for His voice, following His will, allowing Him to use me in the process, and… just waiting.  For a naturally somewhat impatient person like myself though, waiting is sometimes an even more difficult task than moving into unfamiliar territory. 

As I mentioned in my last post Drawing the Line, for a few weeks, I didn’t hear God’s voice at all.  They were silent weeks, and I struggled with feelings of doubt and distrust.  Of feeling like He had abandoned me.  But before His silence, I used to plead with Him to give me some kind of direction, some kind of guidance.  To give me something to do for Him.  And every time I asked, I always got the same answer: Wait.  “The best is yet to come.  Wait.  Be patient.  Trust Me.  I’m not done yet.”  His answer was always virtually the same.  I disliked waiting though and grew restless so I would continue to beg time and time again for a different answer until finally, He just stopped answering altogether.

As He revealed to me just a few days ago though, I had a major flaw in my relationship with Him, and it was this flaw that caused my discontentment and restlessness and was perhaps even the reason for His silence and the length of it.  Again, referring back to my post Drawing the Line, I shared with you all that I had allowed too much buddy-buddy sentiment in my relationship with the Lord and not enough Father God and child perspective.  Returning to the child and parent I used in my illustration in that post, let me share with you another illustration the Lord gave me.  He put it this way.  A child and his friend are having a sleepover when a thunderstorm breaks outside, and the child is frightened by the lightning storm that rages outside his windows.  His sleepover pal tries to assure him it’s okay, but it isn’t until his father comes into the room and reassures him that there’s nothing to be afraid of are his fears relieved.  It was easier for the child to trust his father than his friend.  And that was the flaw in my relationship with the Lord.  Because I viewed God too much as my Best Friend and too little as my Heavenly Father, I found it difficult to trust Him.

When the Lord finally began speaking to me again, He pointed out this flaw of mine since I was too dumb to learn it on my own during those weeks of suffering from His silence.  I guess He realized I just wasn’t going to figure it out on my own.  Despite all my loneliness without His voice, I just couldn’t get it.  But now that He opened my eyes to my fault, my trust in Him and His omniscient wisdom and knowledge has been restored.  The doubts and the distrust have been chased away because I realize now that I’m no longer just trusting in a Friend, but I’m trusting in a wise and loving Father.

So has He brought me out of my interim time of waiting?  Well, not quite.  But I’m finally learning to trust.  I’m okay with this still season now.  I’m learning to be content and to enjoy the wait.  His answer to my prayer is still virtually the same as it was before His silence.  Just last night as I lay in bed, He told me, “Wait to see what I’m going to do.  I’m preparing your path for you.  I’m still paving your way.”  But I’ve finally learned to accept His answer, “Wait.”

Just as the Lord revealed to me in my own life, I think sometimes we get so caught up in asking God to show us where He wants us to go, to lead us where He wants us to be, and we offer ourselves time and time again for His service, pleading with Him to use us, that we don’t realize that where we are might be right where He wants us for the moment.  Sometimes we’re so preoccupied and busy begging Him to take us where He wants that we can’t hear Him telling us that we’re already where He wants us to be just now.  We forget that sometimes God gives a “yes,” sometimes He gives a “no,” and sometimes He just says, “wait.”

Just as a child will believe unquestioningly whatever someone tells him is true, so that is the kind of faith God wants us, His children, to have.  That is the kind of trust He desires for us to cultivate in our relationship with Him.  Just as our adult analytical minds cannot accept that Santa Clause can come down a chimney, so our analytical minds won’t always understand the things that God has told us are true.  I’m reminded of the many miracles that Christ performed while here on this earth.  The lame man walked, the blind man saw, the mute spoke, the deaf heard, the demon-possessed were set free, the dead came to life, the sinners were saved, the prostitute woman was delivered from a fate of being stoned and was given a second chance.  Mary, a virgin, conceived a child and gave birth to the Son of God.  That Man, Jesus Christ, bore the sins of the world as He hung on a cross and died a criminal’s death.  On the Sabbath day, He rose from the dead Himself and later ascended to Heaven.  At the beginning of the world, God created a universe out of sheer nothing.  So many things that we know are true, but that our analytical minds cannot grasp.  Despite what the world tries to tell us, our God is a master at moving mountains.  He is a proficient expert when it comes to working miracles.  And as a quote I read once says, “Faith sees the invisible, believes the incredible, and receives the impossible.”  “Strong Son of God, immortal Love/ Whom we, that have not seen Thy face/ By faith, and faith alone, embrace/ Believing where we cannot prove” -Tennyson

God keeps His promises.  What He tells us, we can believe is true whether it makes sense to us or not.  “For no matter how many promises God has made, they are ‘Yes’ in Christ.” (2Co 1:20)  I have hanging in my bathroom a picture bearing the verses Proverbs 3:5&6: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.”  This is a very popular verse and one that I admit, I knew so well that it had become as a trite expression to me, a mediocre saying.  It had lost its meaning for me, and maybe it has for you as well.  But long before I even entered into this new season, the Lord had struck me with its depth again.  As I took the time to stop and read the words on that picture… they hit me.  Read this verse again, not just skimming it because you know it so well, but read it slowly and actually think about the words you’re reading.  “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.”  It begins with a command: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding…”  Trust.  “Lean not on your own understanding.”  To me, this stands as somewhat of a disclaimer.  The verse doesn’t just tell us to trust in the Lord, but Solomon intentionally went the extra mile and chose to include the instruction for us to not depend on our own understanding.  That’s perhaps one of the most difficult parts of that verse for me to accept.  If we’re commanded to trust in the Lord without leaning on our own understanding, that means we’re going to have to trust Him even in times when things just don’t make sense, when we can’t rely on our own analytical minds to figure it all out for us and when logical reasoning can’t prove it.

In verse six, we’re given another command that directly correlates to the first: “in all your ways acknowledge him…”  If we’re trusting in God with all of our heart and walking by faith in obedience to His will, in submission to His guidance even though we won’t always know where we’re going, then acknowledging God in our life really probably won’t be a big issue.  After all, if we weren’t recognizing Him in our life, we wouldn’t be trusting in Him and following His lead. 

And then at the end, we’re given a promise: “and he will make your paths straight.”  If we trust in the Lord with all our heart, even when our own understanding fails us, and acknowledge Him in our life always, then He will direct our steps and make our paths straight.  This is a promise that has become very dear to me and has been such an encouragement to me during this waiting season in which I find myself.  It’s a promise I can believe is true simply because He tells me it is.

Jesus commends child-like faith.  “People were bringing little children to Jesus to have him touch them, but the disciples rebuked them.  When Jesus saw this, he was indignant.  He said to them, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.  I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.’  And he took the children in his arms, put his hands on them and blessed them.” (Mk 10:13-16)

So let us learn, dear Heart-chords readers- my family and friends, to wait for the Lord and His timing, to trust in His greater understanding, to believe all that He says is true, and to have faith in Him as our Heavenly Father and in His plans and purposes for our lives.  Let us learn not to rely upon our own analytical minds that demand proof, but to return to the unquestioning faith of our childhood.  Colder temperatures returned to my home here in Georgia this past weekend, but let’s not allow the frost of doubts and distrust to kill the buds that God is causing to bloom forth.  Let us learn to accept His simple answer of “Wait” when that’s all He gives us and to learn to be content in the season in which He’s brought us into.  Not always asking for Him to lead us where He wants us to be, but to accept that where He has us just might be right where He wants us to be.  As the lyrics to one of my new favorite songs that my dad discovered on the radio for me goes, let this be the prayer of our hearts: “I will trust in You.  You’ve never failed before.  I will trust in You.  If there’s a road I should walk, help me find it.  If I need to be still, give me peace for the moment.  Whatever Your will.  Whatever Your will.  Can You help me find it?” (Help Me Find It by Sidewalk Prophets) 

 

 

“Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.” Psalm 27:14

 

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.” Proverbs 3:5&6

 

 

In addition to the song by Sidewalk Prophets that I mentioned above, a portion of an article I discovered on my home church website sums what God has been doing in my life over the past three months and I thought you all might enjoy reading it for yourselves.  The article from which I have copied and pasted this portion is titled “The Priority of Pentecostal Worship” by G. Raymond Carlson.  For the entire article, see www.mycornerstonefellowship.org:

 

True commitment can be described as follows: “Complete renunciation of determining your own life goals and ambitions because of your love for God and for his creation.”

With the same measure that you try to control how your own life goes, is the same measure you demonstrate your level of commitment to the Lord.  Your personal, intimate love relationship with God is decisive of the measure of your commitment.  Start to thank God for everything that is in your life.  Begin in a totally personal way to talk with God, in a way in which you would talk with someone that you know, that you like and care for.  Tell God that you love him and need him.  Search the Bible for themes which express your needs.  God will meet you and reveal His love for you.  Do this every day with all your might.  When you are sad, cry but say to God: “I love you.”  When you are rejoicing it isn't so hard to do this.  When you are angry then say to God twenty times: “I love you, I'm angry, but I love you!”  When you do this the love of God will move into your life like never before.  You will see it and feel it.  Out of this will come more thankfulness and willingness for God to work.  You will have less fear of people or situations, when you know: Your God is there.  No one can take this security away from you.  A new power can grow in your heart with this security and you can give more of the control in your life over to God, then you have experienced that God up till now has worked and given you a deep peace and rest in your heart.  Now you begin really to surrender yourself to God.  And God starts to say to you: “Do this, do that!” and you simply do it.  You don't think too long about it, because you have learned to trust your God.  This love relationship is what really matters!

 

Photo courtesy: www.123rf.com

 

~We’ve all heard of the phrase “pulling on her/ his heartstrings,” but heart-chords?  I was struggling to decide what to name my blog.  I wanted it to be a name that was both creative and meaningful.  As I pondered, my gaze fell upon my acoustic guitar where it stands in my bedroom, and the Lord reminded me that our hearts- our lives- are instruments.  They are constantly in song, but what melody our heart plays is each of our own decisions.  They can play a melody for praise or for entertainment.  A musician selects his songs according to his audience.  So do we.  Whether our audience is the world or the Lord, our song will be different.  This blog is designed to first, increase my awareness in finding God and His guidance in my every day and second, to share the music lessons He teaches me in tuning my heart to learn the chords of praise He longs to play on my heart-instrument.  Music is a powerful tool.  Use it for His glory.  “He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God.  Many will see and fear and put their trust in the Lord.” Psalm 40:3