Trusting God Completely

I recently had the privilege of doing the devotional for my MOPS group.  Here is what the Lord put on my heart.  I hope it is a blessing to you all as well!

 

Taking the Plunge:  Trusting God Completely

We all know that as believers and followers of Jesus Christ, we are called to believe Him, to trust Him completely. 

Proverbs 3:5-6 is a very familiar to many.  "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 path straight.” 

Psalm 62:8 says “Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge.

We know we are called to trust God completely.  This is not really where the issue lies.  But knowing we are to trust Him and truly living this are two very different things.  So the question that I will focus on today is how?  How do we trust Him completely?  How do we trust Him with our children, our husbands, our families, the daily stresses of life, the big life altering challenges that we face?  How do we “trust in Him at all times”; how do we trust Him “with all of our heart”? 

First and foremost we must determine if God is truly trustworthy. 

Who is God?  What is He like?  We know from scripture that God is unchanging…He is immutable, His Character forever constant.  So who is He, and what is His Character? 

If you have never truly dug into this question before, I would encourage you to spend some time digging here for yourself.   Truly knowing who God is, believing it, knowing it in the very fabric of who you are is foundational.  It is not something that someone can tell you in a 15 minute MOPS devotional.  But when you seek Him, meditate on His Word, spend time with Him in prayer, you will find Him, you will learn His character.  In order to trust Him completely, you must first know who He is, because How can you trust someone that you do not know?  Let me tell you a little bit about who the Bible says God is…let me tell you about my God:

My God is all powerful, all knowing, ever present, unchanging, completely sovereign, wise, good, faithful, true, strong, victorious, gracious, perfectly just, loving, merciful, compassionate.  Most of all, my God is trustworthy.

So, who is your God?  Is He trustworthy?  If so, trust Him.  If not, then why are you wasting your time being a Christian?  If God is not trustworthy, then quit believing because all of this is for naught!  But if He is, then choose to trust Him.  Our faith in God must based on His character, not on our circumstances.

So how do we trust Him regardless of the circumstances?  We are going to dig deeper with 3 more points…

1.       Focusing on the Who and not the what

2.       Focusing on the Who and not the what if

3.       Focusing on the Who and not the why

First: Focusing on the Who and not the what

There are and always will be things in life that attempt to draw our eyes off of God and place them on the reality of our circumstances.  This can be especially true as a mom…a sick child, a rebellious child, a disobedient child, a needy child, a messy child…you get my drift.  It may be a stress at work, family problems, marital conflict, financial stress.  Life is messy and there will always be something,  The size of that something really doesn’t matter…it may be a big “what”, it may be a small “what”, but the tactic of the enemy is always to get your eyes off of the Who and onto the what.

But regardless of what our eyes may see, our minds may perceive, our senses may assess, we must know that the reality of God is greater and more real than anything we are going through.  There are many, many stories in scripture that teach us that God is bigger than our circumstances, and that regardless of the “what” we can trust Him.

In the Old Testament, for example, there is the story of the Exodus.  God’s people, enslaved to the Egyptians for 400 years, have just been radically set free by a mighty work of God.  But soon they find themselves backed up to the Red Sea with an angry Egyptian army hot on their trail.  Things look bad…things look very bad.  If there was ever a time to stop trusting God, the circumstances would tell the Israelites that this was it.  The reality of their circumstances said that they were all about to be slaughtered or taken back into slavery.  But, having history on our side, we know the end of this story.  In a grand finale sort of miracle, God, the great miracle worker, comes through and parts the Red Sea.  His people all walk across on dry land.  The Egyptian army, who try to follow, are then swallowed up by the sea …and hooray, God wins the day.  God’s ability and God’s reality was very different than the reality of their circumstances.  Moral of the story…trust Him, no matter how bad things look.    

Think also of the stories of: The Battle of Jerico where the army of God fell the impenetrable walls with a trumpet’s blast, the victory of Gideon’s tiny army of 300 over the much much larger Midianite army, God saving Judah from the unstoppable and cruel Assyrian army in the days of Hezekiah, Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead after 4 days in the grave, Peter walking on water with Jesus, Peter being miraculously set free from jail when he was facing certain death…and on and on the list goes.  In all of these and many more, God shows us that the reality of God is greater than the reality of our circumstances.  So rather than focusing on our circumstances, rather than focusing on the what, focus on the Who.  Can we be certain that God will always come through with the rescue, with the miracle…no.  But when we focus on the Who, we remember that no matter what we can trust Him because He is Good, He is Trustworthy, and He is faithful.   He will never leave us, and He will never forsake us. 

Secondly, we must focus on the Who and not the what if.

I think for me, this is one of the greatest challenges.  More than the what or they why, the “what if” can rouse the greatest amount of fear in me. 

What if something happens to my husband…this family cannot function without him?  Why hasn’t he called yet…maybe he got in an accident?  What if something happens to my son? What if he runs into the street or gets hit by a car in the parking lot...what if he gets sick with some kind of crazy disease?  What if something happens to both Ethan and I, what will happen to Eli?  One after the other, these terrifying thoughts assault me continually.  Sometimes, this can even be a very “spiritual” sounding attack.  Often times to me I will hear, “well, you know God’ll be with you and use it for good, but He is going to make you go through something really terrible.  A storm is coming, and you’ll come out stronger in the end, but it’s going to be bad so get ready.” 

And just like that, the enemy has stolen my joy and replaced it with fear.  He had taken my eyes off of the Who and focused them on the what if.  Can anyone else relate?  

The enemy knows that if he get our eyes off of a faithful and trustworthy God and onto the what if of the future, than he can cancel out our faith with fear.  He can render us ineffective in our Kingdom Work, He can steal our joy, our peace, and ruin our witness.  Think about it, he doesn’t even have to do anything but get us worrying about something that may or may not ever even happen and he has paralyzed us with fear.

I think what is at the core of this attack is the very same strategy that Satan used with Eve.  Essentially, he is challenging the very nature of God. 

Look at Genesis 3:1-10

3 Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?”

² And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; ³ but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’”

⁴ Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. ⁵ For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

⁶ So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. ⁷ Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings.

⁸ And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

⁹ Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, “Where are you?”

¹⁰ So he said, “I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.”

·         The serpent challenges God’s word… verse 3- “Has God indeed said…?”

·         The serpent challenges His trustworthiness…verse 4- “You will surely not die…”

·         The serpent challenges God’s goodness…verse 5- “For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God…”

He gets Adam and Eve to buy into the lie that God is not really Good, He doesn’t have their best interest in mind, and they can’t really trust Him.  So rather than trusting God for who He is and what He said, they trust what they can see, feel, sense.  The enemy got them with the “what if.” “What if God is holding out of you?  You better not trust Him, your better trust yourself instead.”

And what was the result of believing this lie?  Fear.  Verse 10…”I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid…”

We must remember that regardless of our future circumstances, God is who He is and He does not change. 

·         Do you know that you know that God is Good?

·         Do you know with all of your heart that He is trustworthy and His Word is true?

·         If so, we must resolve that as the lyrics of the song Bless the Lord O My Soul say, “whatever may pass or whatever lies before me, let me be singing when the evening comes.”

The greatest power that I have found in overcoming the fear of the “what if” is praising the Who.  Rather than entertaining the lies of the enemy, give praise to the One to whom praise is due.  And when you take your eyes off of the “what if” and focus them rightly back on a gloriously loving God, you will be amazed at the peace, joy, and hope that immediately replace that fear…for there is no fear in love. (1 John 4:18) 

Which brings me to my last point…

Focusing on the Who and not the why.

If there is one thing that is clear in scripture, it is that trials and storms will come, and suffering is not only a part of life, it is a part of the Christian life.

So how do we reconcile this?  I know by now that you know where I am going…you must focus on who God is rather than trying to understand the why.  Trying to figure out why something happened may very well drive us crazy and we are not assured any answers.  Even if we do get answers, they hardly go toward healing our wounded hearts.  Understand is not satisfying or restorative. 

Rather than seeking out the why, we must seek out the Who.  There are many things that we will never understand on this side of Heaven.  

Why do some prayers for healing get answered and some don’t?  I don’t know.

Why do some people lose a spouse, lose children, or go through major traumas in life while others don’t?  I don’t know.

Why do bad things happen to good people?  Why are some nations plagued by such horrible death, disease, war, oppression? I don’t know.

But what I do know is that God is both sovereign…all powerful, in control…and that He is good. 

Even when we don’t understand Him, will we trust Him?  When we let go of our need to understand the why and seek out the Who, it is then that we find Him as healer.  Old Testament, New Testament, and the work of the Holy Spirit today all confirm that God’s very nature and heart love to heal.  He is the restorer, He makes all things new, He binds up the brokenhearted, He brings rejoicing in the morning.

So, on this day, my challenge to you is to take the plunge and choose to trust God completely, not because of your circumstances but because of who God is.  In doing so, your life will look radically different.  You will be marked, set aside, by your peace, your joy, your hope, and your faith regardless of the circumstances.  Let’s pray.

How Do You Ask?

At the age of two, my little son is beginning to really get a feel for what he wants.  He is often times very particular about things, and if everything does not go "just so" a cry of outrage at the great injustice done to him by his insensitive parents in not following his exact will may be heard for miles around.

The thing is, that as a parent who love this child beyond words, I want to give Him what he wants.  It pleases my heart to fulfill his request and see my child happy.  Many times, I do just that.  For example, he may say, "Mama, wanna read a book with me?"  "Sure Eli," I say, "I would love to read a book with you."  I will sit down indian style on the floor, he will crawl up into my lap, and we will read away.  He's happy, I'm happy, and all is right in the world. :)

On the other hand, there are times when I am not able to able to instantly fulfill my son's requests. 
One of those times is when his request does not align with what is best for him.  Oh, he may think it is best alright.  Cookies and goldfish for breakfast, lunch, and dinner sounds like a great idea when you are two.  But as his mom, the one primarily responsible for making sure that he receives not only what his taste buds desire but also the nutrients his body needs, I cannot with a good conscience fulfill this request.  Cry and protest as he may, I cannot give him what is not best for him.  Say he wants to run into the street.  "Mama, may I please run into the street?" No matter how nicely or consitently he askes this question, my answer will always be the same...No!  I am willing to sacrifice his happiness at moments to do what I need to do to protect him and provide for him in ways that are best.

Another time that I may not fulfill his request is when his request is not a request at all, but a demand.  Often times, his demands will start out "I want..." or "Give me..."  One question my husband and I find ourselves repeating over and over around here is, "How do you ask?"  Today when we were leaving church, our son said, "I want a snack Dada."  "How do you ask?" said my husband.  After thinking for a moment, I helped him out from the front seat, "Just say, 'may I have a snack please, Dada?'" Sure enough, our little parrot repeated it perfecty, his demand changed to a respectful request, and we responded by fulfilling his request.

Sometimes this situation plays out differently.  Sometimes Eli makes his demand, and we respond with "how do you ask?"  In not immediately receiving what he wants, he begins to throw a fit.  The odd thing about this situation is that it was never our intention to withhold his request, we simply did not like the way he was asking.  The problem was not with the "what" that he was asking for, it was the "how."  Because he has begun to throw a fit, however, we must now deal with a bigger issue, his heart.

I'm sure that by now, many of you are following where I am going with this analogy.  I feel that latley God has been showing me so much about my prayers, requests, and responses to Him through my experiences with my son. 

First, He is my loving Father and delights in giving me what I want.  God loves to say yes to us.  He loves to have us come to Him and pour out our hearts to Him and ask Him for whatever we need.  He is an extravagant giver, He loves us beyond words, and just as a parents receives joy in blessing their children and seeing them happy, God loves to bless us!  In the Old Testament, for example, God appears to Solomon and basically gives him a blank check.  "At Gibeon the LORD appeared to Solomon in a dream by night; and God said, "Ask! What shall I give you?" (1 Kings 3:5)  In the New Testament, Jesus famously invites us to ask, saying, "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you." (Matthew 7:7) 

Certainly, God wants us to ask and He loves to answer us, but as anyone who has ever prayed has experienced, God does not always answer us immediately or in the way that we ask.  Could it be that you are specifically asking for something that is not best for you?  Do you spend your time repeatedly asking for cookies for breakfast or a chance to play in the street for a change?  In that case, God may be willing to deny your request and forgo your happiness for your own good.  Maybe you are asking for something that is good, but He has something different in store for you that is far better.  Will you trust Him with that?  Will you rest in the fact that He is your Good and Loving Father, and if your request is not being met that He has a reason behind it that is ultimately for your own good?  Trust Him, wait on Him, and worship Him in the process.

Or, could it be that you are not asking, but demanding your will from God, rather than submitting to His?  Could you be a little tyrant of a two year old, thinking that you know what is best and demanding that God do things your way, in your timing, and perfectly to your liking.  Check yourself in this, how are you asking?  Are you asking God for your own will, or are you asking God to conform your heart to His Will and praying according to it?  Maybe God is not yet answering you because He wants to train you and teach you how to present your request to Him respectfully.  Phillipians 4:6 says, "Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God."  Are you presenting your request to God with thanksgiving?  Are you resolved that no matter He responds, you will praise Him?  God may be saying, "How do you ask?"  He may not have a problem with the "what" at all...maybe the problem is the "how."

Another question to ask yourself is "how will you respond to His no?"  If you ask God for something and the answer is "no" or "wait," what do you do?  Do you let out a cry that God is unfair and unjust?  Do you think that He was unable to fulfill your request?  Do you get angry, believing that somehow, deep down, you deserved it and He either failed you or cheated you by not providing your request?  Do you think that God doesn't care, or maybe that He is just distant, mean, or harsh?
What is in your heart?  Examine it.  God already knows, and if your response is unfavorable when your requests go unmet, maybe God wants to get to a deeper issue in you and teach you a deeper level of trust in Him.

God wants us to take our requests to Him, to trust them fully to Him, and to rejoice with whatever answer He provides.  The only way to do this is to stop looking at the situation and to start looking at our God.  We will never understand everything that He does.  The Bible says, "Great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised; and His greatness is unsearchable."(Ps 145:3)  His greatness IS unsearchable, we cannot understand it...do you trust that He is indeed great?  In all of His ways?  In everything?  In every answer including no or wait?  We are not called to understand Him, we are called to praise Him.  He is great, He is worthy of our praise.  Give Him the praise the He deserves, not because you get what you want, but because of who He is.  Trust Him.  Even if He has not answered your request, trust that He is a Sovereign, All Powerful, Omnipresent, Loving, Merciful, Gracious, and Good God.  Trust Him, praise Him, worship Him, because in the end this whole thing isn't really about us, it's about Him.

Oh Lord, we magnify You and exalt Your name.  You the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords and we honor you as thus, Jesus.  We submit our hearts to you and ask that you will teach us to pray prayers that are not focused on building our own kingdoms, but on building Yours.  We trust You, Lord, and we love You.  We say, Jesus, that you are Faithful and True.  We submit our every care, concern, and request to you with thanksgiving and a resolve that however you choose to answer, we will praise you and we will trust You.  Ultimately, Jesus, we thank you that we have everything that we need in you.  And in the words of David, our hearts agree, "One thing I ask of the LORD, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple." (Ps 27:4)  You, oh Lord, are our greatest desire; above all else, please give us more of You.  We make this prayer in the matchless name of Jesus, Amen.

A Walk To The Park

I have a two year old boy who absolutely loves going to the park.  This spring, our post nap routine has been to load up the stroller, grab the dog, the snack cup, the basketball and all other essential sports items and head out for a walk to the park.  The problem is, sometimes my little man knows just enough that he thinks we are not going to the park after all.  If I turn in a direction that he feels is leading us the wrong way, he will squirm and flail in protest at mom's cruel injustice.  Oh he knows the way to the park alright, and this is not it!  "Go the other way, Mommy, the park is that way!" 

One day in particular, he was none too pleased that Mom seemed to forget that the whole point of our little stroller outings was to get to the park for him to play.  He fussed as I continued to push him further from his desired destination.  I tried reasoning with him..."Buddy, Mommy is taking you to the park, we are just going to make a big loop first.  We're going to walk along the canals and then by the rainbow fountain, but don't worry, we are going to the park."  Fussing continued, now coupled with him wiggling in an attempt for him to break free from his stroller harness.  Reasoning was not working.  A two year old mind cannot always follow the logic of his thirty year old Mama (who of course is very wise and quite profound).  Then I said, "Buddy, you are just going to have to trust Mama."

Ahh, and then it clicked.  Do you ever have those moments where you hear yourself say something, and then you realize that the true lesson is for you?  That is what happened to me in that moment.  In my attempt to teach my son, the Lord taught me.

Plain and simple, the Lord showed me that I have a very simple choice in this life...am I going to choose to trust Him or not?  Trust has nothing to do with the circumstances, and it has nothing to do with understanding all of the details.  I asked my son to trust me solely on the basis of who I am.  He could not understand my reasoning, and all visual evidence to him seemed to portray that I was leading him astray.  Yet, I was asking him to choose to trust me simply because I am Mama.   

In the same way, we are asked to trust God not because we understand the path that He is leading us down or because we can see clearly how all of this is going to play out in "leading us to the park," but rather simply because He is God.  When circumstances do not go the way that you had hoped, when times of waiting seem to stretch on and on with no end in sight, when dreams are dashed to pieces and long time plans are laid waste, will you trust Him "just because He is God?"  The question in those times of disappointment is not "why?"  Often times, we want to ask God why things did not work out the way that we had asked.  But very much like me trying to explain something to my 2 year old that was beyond his comprehension, so our minds can never understand the ways of God.  Isaiah 55:8-9 says, "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways," declares the LORD. "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts."  The question we need to be asking is not why, but rather, "Is my God trustworthy?" 

Throughout the Old Testament, God continually points out His faithfulness in the past to increase the faith of His people in the future.  Over and over again, you will read of God recounting how he led His people out of Egypt and so on.  In essence He is saying, "Remember who I am.  I am God who is faithful.  I am trustworthy, so trust me."  He is immutable, His character never changes.  If He was faithful then, He will be faithful now.  In my own life the same is true.  I can look back on the past 30 years and say, "Yes Lord, You are faithful and You are trustworthy.  You have never let me down, you have never failed me.  And so I will trust you."

Just like I knew that my son wanted to go to the park, so God knows our hearts, our desires, our "intended destinations."  Will you trust Him with those?  If my son had broken free from the stroller, how successful do you think he would have been in making it there himself?  Let's just say I wouldn't wait to find out.  Likewise, I am helpless without God.  All of my attempts to control outcomes myself are futile.  So rather than complaining and whining and kicking and screaming, I will sit back and enjoy the ride.  I will rest in knowing that my trustworthy God is leading the way and "pushing my stroller," and even when the path takes an unexpected turn, I will trust that He knows the best way to get to the park after all.      



Additional Scriptures:

"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 his heart a man plans his course, but the LORD determines his steps." ~Proverbs 16:9

"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.  He makes me lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside quiet waters, He restores my soul.  He guides me in paths of righteousness for His Name’s sake.  Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.  You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.  Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever." ~Psalm 23