Sunday, November 7, 2010

In God We Should Trust

I was thinking about that saying that our money has donned for so long. "In God We Trust." Recent events in my life has shed light on the fact that I don't always trust God. Before anybody gets too excited, allow me to explain.

With the arrival in my life of the detestable 'D' word, I have lost a great deal. I have had to scramble to secure some sort of life for me and for my daughter. I don't think I knew the meaning of the stress until now. As I watched my dreams, hopes, and plans for my future float away like a balloon, I panicked. The fabric of everything I hoped would be my life unraveled, revealing in its place a tapestry of all my fears.

After the dust settled in those first few days of what I have come to call 'This', I was pulled out of the quagmire of my fight or flight instincts. Who was this hero? God. He showed me that I had been trying to fix everything myself for so long that I hadn't seen him standing right there, aching to take over. So, with this revelation, I thrust myself into His arms. I laid my marriage and my husband at the alter several times. I was trusting Him to take care of me no matter what happened. I went on like that for a long time.

What could possibly disrupt this state of trusting bliss? Things, little things. Incidents that shook me. I began to wonder what if things don't work out. I had a couple of near panic attacks. For those who have never experienced a panic attack, allow me to describe it to you. The room you are in suddenly seems very small. The heart beat that is usually a comfort, becomes a threatening thumping in your ears. You breath comes fast. That is when you realize that you are breathing, not only too fast, but not nearly deep enough. Your brain looks for any exit. You can't get oxygen and you think about how important oxygen is to your survival. This only deepens the panic, never the breathing.

Why should I panic? Even if my marriage is never repaired or the world were to crash around my ears, the creator of the whole universe loves me. I have long and hard about why this trust thing is such a sticky issue for Christians. I believe in God. I believe that Jesus died for my sins. I believe I can enter the throne of Grace and be welcomed and comforted by my Creator. whay can't I trust always that He has the best for me?

One thing about trust that I have learned from my own experience is that it is tied to those around me. There are free agents that move all around me. God gave them the free will to chose good or evil just as he gave it to me. If someone does something to me, I will be angry at them. But the other thing about trust, it seems, is that there is this sneaky force working against it. It is so sneaky that you don't even realize that it is God you are angry at and by extension you are not trusting.

The serpent used it in the garden of Eden. He laid the ground work with Eve to question whether or not God really has our best interest in mind. Then, later Abraham and Sarah had the direct promise for a son. But, when it didn't happen in their time, they decided God needed a helping hand. Over and over again people of God try to fix things themselves because deep down they are wondering if they can really trust God.

The other day I was beginning to worry over this whole situation again. I got a text message from mother-in-law. Proverbs 3:5-6 was all the message said. I looked it up and it goes a little something like this: "Trust in the LORD with all of your heart/ And do not lean on your own understanding./In all your ways acknowledge Him,/And He will make your paths straight."

There was a good reason this made into the Bible. We need to be reminded. These verses answer all the issues to this sticky issue. Doesn't make it easy. I think it is interesting that it says "He will make your paths straight." Not easy. Not short. Straight. I believe this means righteous. The good news to me is that all of those people who have run this race before me and struggled with the same trust issue were not thrown out on those grounds. He gives us grace. We can get up and try again.

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