Why “just trust God” doesn’t always work
I’m running down our country road. To the left, fields of corn roll, tassel topped and green-vibrant. To the right, acres of beans, wet with dew, are kissed by sun’s rays slanting golden. Glorious summer.
It’s out here on the road that I figure things out. That my ears turn toward Him and heart listens. No iPod. No phone. No human companion. Just me and the sun and my Father. Be still.
I settle into my rhythm, legs pumping, arms reaching. Breathing in, breathing out, and I’m talking. “Tell me,” I say to the One who runs with me. “Tell me about this fear, why I can’t seem to…”
“I know.” Just that quick, His voice, calm, assuring.“I know why the old injunction to ‘just trust God’ never worked for you, whether it came from others or yourself or even from Me.”
I’m still running. He’s running, too, and I’m waiting for His explanation.
“It’s because you didn’t really know you were adopted. You didn’t really know I was your Father.” A pause. “You didn’t really know how much I loved you.”
In the morning stillness, my shoes, they slap-slap-slap on the pavement. And He’s talking.
“If a perfect stranger came up to you and asked you to trust him with something important, something that really mattered, you wouldn’t trust him right away, would you? You wouldn’t just trust him without any knowledge of what he was and who he was and what his heart’s intentions were.”
I’m nodding my head in agreement.
“Knowing about Me is not the same thing as true-ly knowing Me. And so every time you heard that admonition, ‘trust God,’ it spelled failure for you. Spelled dis-courage-ment and guilt and more striving.”
Oh, my goodness. He’s got it nailed. And He’s teaching with no condemnation. What a Dad!
“So knowing My love for you…seeing it for yourself, hearing it for yourself, feeling it for yourself, that’s the secret. When you know My love for you, and you know My heart for you, then trusting Me will be the result.”
I’ve reached the halfway point. Turning, I face into the sun, and my feet, they are heading toward home.
Once more, yet, He speaks. “When (and my ears, attuned, catch the ‘when,’ not an ‘if’) I ask you to trust me, and it looks like you’re jumping off the cliff’s edge with no bottom in sight, it may be hard, but you will be able to trust Me. Because you will know Me.”
I’m nearing home now. My heart’s still with the knowing that I am His, He is mine, I’m no orphan.
I have a Father.
And you today, dear one. My prayer for you is that you, too, shall come to true-ly know Him and His vast love for you and then, glorious then, you shall trust Him.
Warmly,
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