5 letters.
Why, who, what, where, when, and how?
When I made the difficult decision to leave my former job, I was hopeful, even confident, that a new position would become evident within days. I applied, interviewed, and pursued all positions that I qualified for. (and yes, even some that I didn't really qualify for! But hey, let's face it, you'll never know if you don't ask. ;)
Yet here I am, weeks later, still without a job to my name.
It has been a bumpy road. I've clung to Worry because I did not know Trust. Though it wasn't clear at first, I see how God used these last few weeks to teach me-again-what it means to trust.
So why trust? Maybe because the alternative relies not on God, but on self. Worry does not lead us to Christ. Through worry we fall farther into pride and sinful ways of finding freedom from our fear. Trust loosens our grip, turns our eyes to the Lord, and tunes our hearts to hear His voice.
Trust who? Where sin lies, imperfect motives and actions follow. We humans try to be trustworthy, but the truth is we fail. Not only do we fail, but we are not able to do all or know all. Only one who is sinless and possesses all power is worthy to be trusted. Fully. Therefore, I trust in God. He created Trust and knows the meaning of it.
What is worth trusting? If God is trustworthy, then the truth He created is also. I can depend on everything He has said, and everything He will say, because it is True. There are many things that masquerade as the truth, especially lies that I create in an effort to mask worry with my human abilities. When my knowledge of God gives birth to my trust of Him, I will see the lies as they are. His Truth cannot be hidden, cannot be denied.
Where is trust? Is God limited? Is His Truth limited? Is there any corner of the world, any corner of my mind, of my life, that is kept from His eyes and where the Truth may not go? There is none. Where God is, there Trust follows. I can trust Him for everything in my life, with everything in me.
Will trust expire? God holds Time in His hand, for He created Time. When God ends, so will trust. Yet He is eternal and neither will Trust. It is like a boat upon an ocean that goes on and on, a boat which will never sink. I can choose to jump in and out of it, but if I stay in that boat, it will carry me forever. It is guided by God. Trust in God has stood the test of time.
And now for the ultimate question: however does one trust God? I think I've asked this question more than any of the others. I don't have a job yet, and my stomach still wants to tie in knots. Sometimes I want to cry in pain and frustration. I still want to run out and demand a job. But after these last weeks, I've come to the following determination:
Trust is the abandonment of worry. It's letting go of your imperfect ability to swim that ocean, and it's making the decision to climb into the boat. God gave us many talents, skills, and abilities. We think we can save ourselves from any problem, little or big, with those gifts! But we forget so easily that they are gifts. We did not receive them by our own merit. All we have is Grace.
It's my prayer that from now on, instead of blindly jumping back into worry and swimming it out, I will remember that there is a boat just ahead, waiting to bear me peacefully through any storm or challenge. That boat is called Trust and its Maker is called Jehovah Jireh-my provider.
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