-Isaiah 43:10
I have been chosen specifically so that I may know and believe God and understand who He is. You have too! The Hebrew word for "know" in this verse is yadha. This term actually was used to represent the close relationship between a husband and wife. Our relationship with God should be intimate. God created us to know him and experience freedom in Him and Him alone. God also wants us to actually BELIEVE Him. The Hebrew word for "believe" in this verse is aman. This term means "to be firm, to be enduring, to TRUST."
"Many variables in our lives affect our willingness to trust God. A loss or betrayal can deeply mark our level of trust. A broken heart never mended handicaps us terribly when we're challenged to trust. Trusting an invisible God doesn't come naturally to any believer. A trust relationship grows only by stepping out in faith and making the choice to trust." -Beth Moore
Ouch. I have experienced many times of betrayal and broken-heartedness in my life. Starting from a young age, the relationship with my sister seemed like nothing but heart ache and betrayal. As I wrote before, being told I was worthless and having rumors spread about me by my own sister created a horrible trust level....rather, lack of one. There is absolutely no trust for my sister. She lies and exaggerates more than anyone else I know. The world needs to revolve around her or the world is going to come crashing down. This is so frustrating. I can't even trust my own sister. I can't trust her to tell the truth, I can't trust her with my earthly possessions because she has taken before without asking. I can't trust her for positive influence. I can't trust her with secrets. I can't even trust her enough to have more than a 2 minute conversation with her. Ouch. My heart is so incredibly sinful. I can't believe the level of trust with my sister is absolutely nothing. I have hatred towards her and how much pain she has brought into my life. Pain that affects me to this day. My sin tells me to blame her for believing that I am not good enough because she would tell me so often. My sin tells me to blame her for having horrible body image and struggling everyday to believe I am beautiful because God created me exactly how he wanted. My sin tells me to blame her for how independent I have become in life because of how distant our family is as a whole knowing how much pain she has brought to my parents as well. I struggle greatly with being really good at self-sufficiency because I felt like I could only rely on myself so much growing up. I couldn't trust my sister for anything and my parents seemed to have enough to deal with when dealing with my sister. I never wanted to reveal my flaws and mistakes to cause my parents more burden so I continually build up this wall of what I thought perfection may look like. This has drastically affected my trust level with God. I have learned so well to hide my imperfections and have convinced myself for so many years that the only person I could truly trust was myself. I have had best friends turn their back on me and spit devastating words in my face. I have had a dating relationship that ended because of him cheating. The Lord continually uproots deep pain that I have just shoved down for way too long. As I have taken steps of faith to trust the Lord for renewal, I have seen His hand do so many incredible things in my life. I have come to the point of a very good level of trust with the Lord, but I desire so much more. As I am almost 23 years old, I have a long way to go with trusting the Lord. There will be major decisions to be made in the next 5-10 years that will need to be made in full reliance on Him. Good thing the Lord has already made plans for me, I just need to continually hear His comforting voice. I obviously have a very hard time trusting people in my life but I also fall short in trusting the Lord in a couple major things that Lord has been having me process. The first thing is my future after graduation. I have a year and a half left of school and it's a great time to start discerning what the Lord would have me do after school. It has been amazing to see the Lord closing doors to make His plan more apparent but I still am working on FULLY trusting the Lord. I am 99% sure that I will be doing full time ministry after graduation. I am scared out of my mind when it comes to raising support and dealing with family reactions. I am not exactly sure what the full time ministry plan looks like either. My head knows the Lord is sovereign and completely trustworthy....but my heart is not always fully accepting of that truth. Lord, please continually change my heart and break it to desire nothing but You and Your plan! The second thing that I have always had trouble trusting in is that I will someday be "good enough" for someone to be their wife. Now that I have entered a season of life that has so many friends getting married and engaged, the enemy uses this to constantly remind me of the lies from my childhood. It's honestly a daily struggle to believe the Lord does have the perfect plan in this. Again, my head says, "of course I trust the Lord's timing is perfect," but my heart gets anxious proving to not believe what my head says. The best thing about all of this is that the Lord has been refining me and breaking my heart to desire Him alone. This past 6 months or so has been the first time that I can honestly say, "I'm falling in love with my Savior."
How would you characterize your level of trust with your Savior? What have been some of the losses, betrayals, and heart aches that keep you from trusting the Lord more deeply with your life?
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you TRUST in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
-Romans 15:13
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