For When You Struggle to Trust

When everything is humming and life is working just as it should trusting God seems like second-nature to me. 

He is good! He is wise! He is faithful!

Then comes dissonance, a change in plans I did not choose, a moment that changes the harmony that were my days and doubt and fear push trust aside. 

He is far away. He has turned his face. He has forgotten me.

And I try to fix the problem.

I work, I strive, I stress. I talk to people and search for ways out. I chase after my own solutions and my own wisdom until I come to the end of my rope: this is beyond my hands.

But He won’t be forgotten and his message resonates:

Trust me, He says from every scripture I read.

Trust me, He reminds me as people casually ask without knowing my circumstances: "Are you trusting God?"

Trust me, he mutters as every song, devotional, and book chapter that cross my path prompt: "Trust God today."

And finally, slowly, once again, as I should have done from the beginning, as my last resort that should be first, with my last breath and no trace of pride I finally do.

I trust. I trust him. I let him have it all.

And after all these years…

I should know to do this first but I don’t.

I should know that rest will only come then but I don’t.

I should know to save my sanity but I don’t.

I should know better now but I don’t.

I should.

Because when I look back at my life over the last nearly twenty years I see the hand of God shaping my path unmistakably.

As I have obeyed his prompts He has molded my journey and twenty years ago I would never have imagined who I would be today and what my life would look like.

The labels by which I am known today are labels I never knew existed or would ever be associated with me! Minister’s wife, adoptive mom, homemaker, online instructor, homeschooler, women’s ministry enthusiast, small group leader, worship team member.

And God is never done with me. He is in constant motion of creating plans and dreaming dreams for me.

And while his plans and dreams can terrify me and overwhelm me as many have over the last two decades, I have stepped forth in faith time and time again trembling and groping in the dark, only to find his sure hand ready to hold mine through the journey.

And I’ve never been sorry.

So I want to know what is beyond today.

I want to know what new adventure He is planning for me now.

I feel the stirrings in my heart of a new beginning and, as much fear as that can inspire in me, I am learning to trust him. He knows what He is doing and He will carry me above the mountain that blocks my view of the fertile valley beyond.

But He seldom reveals anything beyond the very next step because He wants me to hold His hand all the way down the road.

"You don't walk alone. I know you can't see what's up ahead, but I do. Trust me...again."

Friend, whatever it is, wherever you are, just hold on tight.

And trust him today.

The sparrows, the lilies of the field and the parking spot.

Last weekend I was driving to meet a friend for coffee downtown. As I was nearing our meeting location, she sent me a message that she has arrived but that downtown was terribly crowded and parking was proving a nightmare to find.

I panicked a bit. Most of the parking on the streets of our downtown is parallel and I will admit right here and now that I don’t know how to parallel park. It’s not that I don’t like to do so. I don’t know how. I did it once to pass my driving test more than twenty years ago and have not done it since. I go to ridiculous lengths to avoid it, actually.

Lately, God and I have been having an ongoing argument, debate, screaming fight, conversation about trust. It has way too many layers to be dissected here but let’s just say that I have deep trust issues and that this can make a relationship that is, at its very core based on trust and faith, difficult. So we struggle on. Him telling me that He is trustworthy and me saying, “Yeah? Show me.”

The morning of the parking situation we were not at our best, God and me, so I sarcastically prayed (can you be sarcastic with God?): “Ok, God of the parking space, Lord of the parking lot, find me a spot.” I had always secretly sort of smirked at people who would give God public thanks for finding them a good spot to park. “God surely has better things to worry about than you not having to walk a few more steps, come on!” was my very Christ-like thought towards those people.

Not 1o seconds and a half a block later I saw a car pulling out of a parking spot which was at the end of the line (no parallel parking!), less than 20 feet from the coffee shop where I was to meet my friend, and there were even 40 minutes left in the meter. Score!

I’ll be honest. With a world full of hunger, wars, slavery, poverty, pain, and suffering to care for I have a hard time understanding why God would hear my sarcastic, inane, seemingly irrelevant prayer for a parking spot on a Saturday morning. But He did.

He remains a mystery to me in so many ways. But as I continued my dialogue with Him that day (this time much less sarcastically) a thought began to emerge clearly in my heart:

God cares.

And no, I don’t think that God will always help me find a good parking spot. This is not about a parking spot. It is about a God that finds ways to say: “I love you. I see you. I hear you” wherever we are, in whatever situation we find ourselves. Big or small.

I guess I can compare it to walking by my daughter on my way to the kitchen and stroking her cheek gently. It’s not much. It’s a simple gesture, really. But it is an easy way to let her know she is loved.

That morning, the parking spot was holy ground. I turned the car off and, before I got out, felt a stroke on my cheek: “You are loved.” I breathed a prayer of thankfulness to the God who cares about the sparrows, the lilies of the fields…and me. 

God, my God.

I sat on my recliner, tears pouring down my face. I held my Bible between my hands and prayed:

I don’t want to open this book. I am terrified to read it from cover to cover and find not one word to comfort me or guide me or encourage me. Such is how I feel right now. There are no words, no hope, you are simply not around. It’s too dark for me to find you.

I was at a crossroad. Decisions before me, unknown all around me and I didn’t know where the path was and how to walk it.

Are you still there, God? Are you listening? Why are you so clear some days and some you are as murky as muddy water? I don’t know what to do. I just don’t know where the road is that you are carving before me.

There was no comfort in prayer, there was no comfort anywhere. I was confused. I thought I knew God's will and now this…

I want to follow you wholeheartedly but I just don’t understand where you are going.

I held the book some more, feeling the soft leather between my fingers, turning it from side to side, trembling with the certainty that I would not hear from God from within its pages.

Not so bravely, with a sigh, I slowly opened the front cover to a place towards the beginning, without thinking. Had I thought I would not have. My comfort comes from David, from Jeremiah, from Paul, from the disciples. Never from Moses. Moses, so removed from my own life. Moses, who had spent time with God and knew the sound of His voice.

But my fingers touched the name Deuteronomy on the top of the page and I despaired.

What good can come out of Deuteronomy, the book of wanderers? How are they like me? I'm not wandering away from you, God; I'm seeking you. Oh, God, you are not listening still.

Then my foolish eyes landed on a phrase, straight up, first words. And I began to read and I did not stop:

“I tried to relieve your fears: ‘Don’t be terrified of them. God, your God, is leading the way; he is fighting for you. You saw what he did in the wilderness, how God, your God, carried you as a father carries his child, carried you the whole way until you arrived here. But now that you are here, you won’t trust God, your God- this same God who goes ahead of you in your travels to scout out a place to pitch camp, a fire by night and a cloud by day to show you the way to go.”    (Deuteronomy 1:29-33. The Message)

Oh, God, my God, you hear, you comfort, you speak still. God, my God, you are still leading me, you go before me, you fight for me. I remember, God, my God. I remember what you have done through all the many wilderness of my life. You carried me, you did. You carried me lovingly as a father until we were safely on the other side. I live with two remembrances of how you, God, my God, carried me safely through a wilderness once. They kissed me this morning, they called me "mami," and I remembered your goodness.

I want to trust you for you are the same God you were then, and you are still before me showing me the way to go. Carry me now even still until we stand together on the mountain top again, away from this valley of dry bones, and we sing a hymn of worship to God, our God, the never-forsaker, the promise-keeper. In you alone, I place my trust.

Don't you know?

My daughter humbles me. She has an understanding of who God is that is unadulterated by any personal agenda, any past experiences and any un-repented transgression. She takes Him at his word, with child-like trust, and believes He is exactly what she has been taught He is. No doubts, no questions, no suspicions.

Yesterday she and her little friend M. were sitting down to watch a movie while M.’s mom and I chatted in the kitchen. In an unusual move she didn’t pick a princess movie when I gave her the choice but took instead The Lion King.

I was surprised because she had not seen this movie in a while. When she was younger she had a love-hate relationship with Simba, Mufasa, and Scar. She loved, loved, loved the movie but would only watch the scary parts holding on to one of us. She would bury her face in her daddy’s chest but refuse vehemently when we asked if we should turn it off. As she got older and traded her animals-dressed-as-people stage for baby dolls, so did her taste in movies shift to princesses and fairies, and she had not asked to see Lion King in a while.

When M. found out what movie they would be watching she voiced similar concerns to those Isabel had had in the past about the story:

-“But the Lion King has Scar and Scar is scary!”

And here I was humbled. My little girl replied with a smile on her face:

-“But we don’t have to be scared. God will take care of us. Don’t you know?”

Don’t you know?

I know, don’t I? It is what I tell her when she is worried and we sing God is bigger than the boogie man. I know. It is what I say to her when she is afraid to walk from her bed to the potty in the middle of the night. I know.

Don’t I?

I know until…the doctor tells us a biological child is not likely to happen for us.

I know until… God calls me to quit my job and stay home with my children and the budget doesn’t add up.

I know until…my friend is diagnosed with terminal cancer at 15.

I know until…something happens to stir my world around and to take away from me all the illusion of control.

I know until…

…and then I don’t know. Then I panic. Then my faith slips through my fingers like water. Then it’s hard to look at someone and ask “don’t you know?”

and then...

…Isabel and Noah happen.

… a job from home happens.

…my friends’ parents reconnect with Christ in the sorrow of her loss.

…God shows up.

Over and over again. God shows up. I know. I’ve seen. I’ve experienced.

And yet, this four-year-old with seemingly no life-experience to speak of or tangible answers to prayer to show for, trusts God’s care wholeheartedly. She, who does not have volumes and volumes of journals recording all the times God has shown up; she, who doesn’t have story after story of God-ordained moments that saved the day; she, who in her short existence cannot look back and marvel at God’s constant hand over her life. She can ask confidently: “don’t you know?”

Amazing.

And humbling.

One day I will be like her.

One day maybe I will have faith like a child.