Trusting in the Lord

Matthew 6:28-30 And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?

Imagine the lilies blowing in the breeze around Jesus, the Master Teacher, as He used the beautiful flowers to drive home this powerful point—God cares enough for the grass of the field to provide it with color and beauty. Don’t worry, He will provide for you.

The promise of God is to provide us with exactly what we need. I get a little peeved with people that think and claim He gives us the desires of our hearts as if it was due them. I have trouble with that because I think they forget that scripture also says in Psalm 37:4-6 ESV Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in Him, and He will act. He will bring forth your righteousness as the light, and your justice as the noonday.

There are some action verbs in that scripture which require our attention. Delight yourself in the Lord… Commit your way to the Lord… trust in Him…

Delight yourself in Lord doesn’t mean to sit around making a list of the ‘desires of your heart’ that you want God to provide as if He was Santa Claus. It means we fall in love with the Lord and want what He wants for us. Our will starts lining up with His will for us and we want His will in our lives more than anything else.

Commit your way to the Lord means your living and thinking lines up with His precepts and sensibilities and your old ways of living for yourself, doing what you want to do in your earthly ways falls off and no longer entices you away from the Lord. Friends, scripture tells us that temptations and trouble will always be a fact of life as long as we are walking in out ‘earth suits’ but it also tells us that God will always provide a way out of temptations for us…it’s up us to make godly choices.  

Trust in Him is easy enough to say we do but do we really? Trusting in the Lord means waiting on His timing instead of insisting on our own. I’ve learned the hard way that His schedule for my life is far better than me insisting on pushing ahead of God and doing it MY WAY. Trusting in Him means believing He will provide what we need, not necessarily what we want. There is a huge difference. Do you trust Him to know what you need?

Father, thank you for the love and care you have for your children. Help us to worry less and trust more. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

God is Still in Control

2 Corinthians 12:9-10 He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong."

God is still in control. God is still in control. God is still in control.

That five word phrase, simple and straight to the point, is one of the foundational blocks of my faith and strength. GOD IS STILL IN CONTROL. It doesn’t matter what else is going on around us, God is still in control. The evening news spews bad news daily but God is still in control. Our health may become shaky and scary but God is still in control. Our finances may be non-existent but God is still in control. Our family and friends may have turned their backs on us but God is still in control.

I can’t count the hours, days, years of my life that I ran around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to solve my problems, trying to figure out something to make a bad situation better. I believed in God, called myself a Christian and yet, I never felt the peace and security I have since I let that little five word phrase soak into my heart, mind and spirit. God is still in control.

My body has ‘issues’…God is still in control. I figure if He is allowing it to continue in my life, He has a purpose and reason for it and will use it to His greater glory somehow. That’s all I need to know. I do my part to take care of the body He gave me and He does all the rest. It makes no sense to me to sit around whining about it all the time since God is still in control.

I will be the first to admit I have times where some things in this world give me pause and I feel weak against them. My weakness is not the issue, I am not in control. We feel weak against those things that hover over us…we usually feel the weakest over things which we have no control. Shout it aloud with me…God is still in control…we don’t have to be. What a burden lifter that it!

Deuteronomy 31:6 “Be strong and of good courage, do not fear nor be afraid of them; for the Lord your God, He is the One who goes with you. He will not leave you nor forsake you.”

Trust in the Lord

It is amazing how often I find there to be a reoccurring word or ‘theme’ in my daily reading. This day, I was running into the word ‘trust’ all over the place. I have several Bibles I use for different things but the one I read in my daily study time is The Complete Jewish Bible. It puts the original Jewish-ness back into the scriptures. It uses ‘trust’ everywhere the word ‘faith’ is used in other versions. Trust is a big deal….

This season of my life finds me a little shaky in the trusting of people. I do not hesitate in trusting the Lord but I am not so inclined to be as assuming in my trusting of people. This season has opened doors I would have preferred to keep shut, closed doors I wanted open and turned everything I knew to be true upside down and spinning like a top. Trusting in the Lord was the only thing I could count on…faith = trust.

Trust in God is often expressed by our restraint. We are expected to recognize that God is present, aware and lovingly involved in every difficult situation we face. It is required that Christians curb many of their “natural” responses, and learn to patiently, and often quietly, wait for God’s resolution. Of course there are times he calls us to stand up, speak out or fight, but more times than we’d prefer, God demands that we slow down, keep quiet, and wait for his intervention. We need to remember that in most cases “the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God” (James 1:20). So the more you consider the character of God and his omnipresent concern for his kids, the more you will be able to sincerely say with the psalmist, “I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord” and you will gladly heed the call to “wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord” (Psalms 27:13-14).

‘Waiting’ is not something that comes so naturally to me, either, these days. My spinning world left me dizzy and confused. It’s hard to wait for normalcy when your world is spinning. I am more comfortable when I can make something happen, take charge of things and put my world in order. HA!!!!!! Not a chance. When it comes to living after Christ, we must learn to wait for His divine intervention. One thing I discovered about myself through this season is that I pacify myself during the waiting time by painting! Yep, I distract myself and sooth the beast within by painting something. Don’t stand still in my house too long or I will paint you!

The good news is when we truly trust, have faith in, the Lord, He will put things in order for us as He would have them to be. It may not line up with our game plan…BUT, it is His will for us and TRUST ME, that’s the best, as good as it gets.

Do the Next Thing

John 19:27 Then saith he to the disciple, Behold thy mother! And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve said a billion times (indulge my exaggeration) ‘I don’t know what to do!’ We are commanded to “look to Jesus” on the cross in order to know how to handle our time of suffering and hardship (Hebrews 12:2). A lesson we can learn from Christ on the cross is this: make practical preparations, in the midst of your sorrow.

When we face overwhelming grief, unrelenting discouragement, or pounding pain, it is often hard to know what to do. We tend to want to roll up in a ball and hope that the storm will pass or that some easy solution will present itself.

However, the right response, even in times of great suffering, is to make practical preparations in the midst of your sorrow. You must still get out of bed, or go to work, or do the laundry, or pay the bills, or play with the children, or write up your will — no matter how low you may feel, ignoring your responsibilities will not help any problem go away.

Here was Jesus, in the darkest moment of human history, bearing the brunt of man’s and God’s wrath. No one has ever been in as low a state as Jesus was at this time. And, yet, he is making simple, mundane preparations for after his death. He is making sure that his mother will be cared for.

Elizabeth Elliot calls this fundamental need to face reality the “do the next thing” principle. When you don’t know what to do next, she says, do the next thing. This is excellent and practical advice: Do it immediately, do it with prayer.

Jesus is coming back, this is a fact. Meanwhile, we are to be helpful every day, even the worst of days and in times of great trial.  Don’t know what to do? The Bible tells us. Paul gave us the specifics in 1 Thessalonians 5:

And we urge you, brothers,
·         warn those who are idle,
·         encourage the timid,
·         help the weak,
·         be patient with everyone.
·         Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong,
·         but always try to be kind to each other and to everyone else.
·         Be joyful always;
·         pray continually;
·         give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.
·         Do not put out the Spirit's fire;
·         do not treat prophecies with contempt.
·         Test everything.
·         Hold on to the good.
·         Avoid every kind of evil…

If you don’t know WHAT to do, this should keep you occupied!  We must walk through the times of trouble in faith, continue to take care of life's practical needs AND be helpful to those around us. Do the next thing. Do it immediately, do it with prayer

God, You are the one at work in us. By Your Spirit , through Your Word, I ask that You will speak to me clearly now. What specific things do You want to do through me to be helpful today? Lead me. Guide me. I trust You do it through me. Amen.

Christian 'Control Freak' 101

Proverbs 3:5 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.”

Trusting the Lord with all your heart and not leaning on your own understanding is much harder to do than it is to say…especially for control freaks and most of us ARE control freaks when it comes to our own lives.

The Missing Alarm Clock as shared by Rick Boxx

Cindy shared with a group that God had taken away her alarm clock. She explained that she had a tendency to struggle with control issues. As a CEO responsible for hundreds of employees, Cindy usually was in charge.

Three years ago Cindy believed God challenged her to trust Him and to begin by giving up her alarm clock. God wanted her to trust Him instead. The morning I met Cindy, she had to be up by 3:15 to arrive on time. She was nervous that God would let her down, but at 3:14 God used her dog to awaken her!

Do you trust God with the small and big things? We are guilty of thinking He needs our help. Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying we should sit back on our ‘blessed assurance’ and do nothing but when we give something over to the Lord, when we know that it will take divine intervention, we need to step out of His way; He is in the miracle business. Much of what we think we have accomplished by our wits and clever ways has been orchestrated by Him in the first place. If our needs and/or desires are in keeping with His will for our lives, He moves the mountains. If we are straining to move mountains on our own, we are wasting our time.

If you’re anything like me, you would prefer to have His instructions in writing to make sure you were on the right path and not talking yourself into believing your decisions were God ordained. Not wanting to leave any room for error…

There we go again, leaning…on (y)our own understanding. Not much trust going on there.

"in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.” Our part is made perfectly clear in this part of the verse, “…in all (y)our ways submit to Him…”. That’s our part, the trusting and submitting. “…and he will make (y)our paths straight.” We must trust and submit and leave the results up to Him. Tall order for control freaks, huh?

 

I DO want straight paths and His hands clear the way for me. No, “trusting and submitting” are not passive activities to keep us busy while He is out making the way clear and straight. Trusting and submitting are what we must do if we want that clear path. It is OUR PART.