Monday, August 1, 2011

Trust

What is trust? It is not needing to know all the answers before you believe in something. It is following God's peace through the Holy Spirit and believing that, even if what we are doing does not make sense to us now, even if we do not know why we should do a thing,that somehow it all makes sense. It is being obedient in disregard of the consequences (or of knowing what the consequences are). It is bringing all our feelings, hurts, desires, and questions to God, believing that He can understand, that He will heal, that He will give us exactly (no more, and no less) what we truly need from Him in comfort or information--if only we will trust Him enough to bring these things to Him in faith.

It is piloting a ship in uncharted waters with no land in sight, but being unafraid because you have listened to the right person about what your compass-bearing should be.

It is believing that the character of God is entirely good. It is believing that His word is truth. It is seeking Him when we cannot see and asking Him when we cannot know. It is listening to the still, small voice and heeding His instructions. It is knowing that God never stops loving, never abandons, never lies, never betrays; knowing that those who trust in Him will not be disappointed. It is realizing that we as humans do not need to understand in order to trust in Him.

It is taking to Him and to His Word all the twisted and broken pieces of our wrong beliefs about Him, about ourselves, about our relationship with Him, and letting Him break that portrait and replace it with His own truth. It is knowing that He understands, in a way that we could not, precisely who we are and what we need and how we learn and how we relate to the bigger picture. It is trusting that He will show us exactly as much of the picture as we truly need to know, if only we will ask.

It is letting Him break us out of the prisons that we have devised for our own "safety" but that really just prevent us from flying . . . it is trusting His timing, both in the sense of waiting on Him and in the sense that when He tells you that it is time to do a thing, it must be the right time to do it!