A few months ago I stuck a note on my spindle. A pointy thing that holds some of my thoughts I want to hang on to. I can only hang on to them if I write them down. If I come across a thought, I write it in my journal and then I write it on a scrap paper and jab it onto a pointy thing. There’s something satisfying about the jab. Periodically, I’ll go through the spindle and be reminded of why something was meaningful to me and sometimes I toss them thinking, why in the world did I write that down.
Anyway, at the end of last year a thought made the spindle and it’s staying there. It is a reminder that is pertinent to my life.
If I trust God with my eternity, why don’t I trust Him with my nows?
This thought comes up nearly every day, for me. When I’m thinking about circumstances or situations in my life or the lives of others and I see no way out, I dwell on this thought. It gives me perspective. The perspective is that if I trust God to keep His promises that I will go live with Him forever, no more tears, no more sorrow, no more pain, etc., and to be honest, I don’t doubt that one bit, then why don’t I trust Him to keep His promises in my right nows? If I trust Him in death why don’t I trust Him in life? Maybe because I’m not afraid to die, but I just might be afraid to live. Hmmm. Chew on that a bit.
It’s a matter of trust. Trust is not always the flip of a switch – click, I trust. Living grows trust. Living through hard stuff grows trust. When we do not trust God’s handling, God’s timing, God’s love for us, we take matters into our own hands and oh boy, what a mess we make. Right?
Am I more determined to navigate my own course than leaving it to Him?
I read something similar to this a while back and it gave me pause. After careful consideration, I’d have to say a lot of times, yes. I know, that shouldn’t be the case. I should be relying on God to steer me through life’s happenings instead of trying to pilot my own course and trying to control the outcomes. And when I’m piloting the course and trying to control the outcomes, which by-the-way I can’t do anyhow, that means I have a trust problem.
If I’m navigating my own course, or some might say trying anxiously to control, it means I do not trust Him. Plain and simple. Wait! No, I do trust Him, but… We either trust Him or we don’t. Granted, there is a disconnect sometimes between our minds and our hearts, sometimes we don’t always line up, remember the hind’s feet? It is perilous when our back feet (heart and mind) don’t land in the front feet (soul and strength) steps? We risk falling on the treacherous terrain.
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself. Luke 10:27
Trust. Reliance. Confidence. Hope. Faith. We cannot stumble through life with half-trust, picking and choosing the situations that God is capable of handling and those that we must handle for Him. This creates so many bad decisions on our part and frankly, just a miserable existence.
Trust is a tricky thing, though. We may feel it with our minds, but don’t know it with our hearts. Or, we may feel it with our hearts, but don’t know it in our minds. Trust is getting it all to line up and that’s a process.
If I am more determined to navigate my own course, my life will be a constant battle, kind of like a Pushmi-Pullyu. My head and my heart are connected to one body but constantly battling for control. Visualize that. Only when we give up control are we given freedom from the tug of war. Freedom to trust. Freedom to allow Him to navigate our lives. If we are constantly trying to control the outcomes of life, we will never have freedom.
When He got into the boat, His disciples followed Him. Suddenly a violent storm came up on the sea, so that the boat was engulfed by the waves; but Jesus was sleeping. The disciples went and woke Him, saying, “Lord, save us! We are perishing!”
“You of little faith,” Jesus replied, “why are you so afraid?” Then He got up and rebuked the winds and the sea, and it was perfectly calm.
The men were amazed and asked, “What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the sea obey Him!”
Matthew 8:23:27
Do we not think that the One that controls the oceans cannot control the seas of our lives? We are so like the Disciples charting our own course and then being engulfed by the waves. Here’s the thing I love about this passage. He rebuked the winds and the waves, but He did not rebuke the Disciples for their little faith. I can’t imagine that the Disciples were not trying to control their boat during this storm. I can’t imagine that they were not trying to navigate the waters, control the sails and bailing the water out of the boat. Only when they saw they were not able to manage the crisis did they cry out to Him. And He answered.
Freedom comes when we cry out to Him. Our freedom comes when we trust Him enough to take control. It is a process. But just like the Disciples, we can breathe a sigh of relief when we see He is true to His promises and trust Him more.
Only when we cry out to Him will we begin to believe that we can trust God with our eternity and our nows. Then we can really start living. Living in hope. Living without fear. Living in His promises. Living in His Light. Spreading His Light.