More on trust.

Then I said to you, “Do not be terrified; do not be afraid of them. The Lord your God, who is going before you, will fight for you, as he did for you in Egypt, before your very eyes, and in the wilderness. There you saw how the Lord your God carried you, as a father carries his son, all the way you went until you reached this place.” In spite of this, you did not trust in the Lord your God, (Deuteronomy 1:29-32 NIV)

The thing about God is that he has not once given us any reason to not trust him. 

He has not once failed us or left us or broken a single promise. 

He has been faithful through every moment and season. 

He has shown us time and time again that he is worthy of our complete trust. 

The thing about us is we find it hard to completely trust him. 

Why is that? 

Maybe it has a lot to do with our human nature, we want to have control over our lives and by putting our complete trust in God we surrender that control to him. 

Maybe it's that we were born into world were people are incapable of being 100% faithful and so we learn to distrust and in doing that we perceive God to be the same. 

The fact is that even after God showing us his faithfulness and keeping his promises every single time as if He has to prove himself to us, we struggle to give him our complete trust. 

But the truth is that until we do that, He cannot fight for us. 

He only does as much as we let him do, with as much of us as we give him. 

So if we are holding onto anything in the hopes that we could do it better, we are fooling ourselves. 

We will forever be fighting a loosing battle with weapons that are only effective if we place them in his hands. 

So we must choose in spite of ourselves to place everything we have into his hands. 

We must choose to let him fight for us, just as he has done before. 

Just some thoughts on trust.

It's so much harder to trust Jesus with the little things. 

It becomes a choice then, when you could do it in your own strength but hand it over to him anyway.

When you could do things your own way, but trust His way is better. 

When something happens that is so huge and overwhelming we are not left with any other choice then to trust God with it.

When it's too big for us we have to hand it over to the one who is bigger. 

It's not a choice then, it's just a matter of surviving the season. 

The choice to trust comes in the little things we trust Him with. 

Nothing is more frustrating to me or awakens more anxiety within me then being able to do something, but letting someone else do it anyways.

Lately my trust journey has gone from having to trust him to choosing to. 

I've found it was so much easier when I had no choice and nowhere else to go. 

Trust became my only option. 

But what about when it is not. 

Do we choose it anyway? 

It becomes more about putting him first? 

It becomes a choice. 

I can handle almost anything if I know I can practically do something through it. 

I have spent so much time in this season continuously asking God to tell me what I can do when all he saying is "Let me" 

So I choose to trust him. 

And I need to choose to over and over again. 

Isaiah

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze. (Isaiah 43:2 NIV)

Note to self: it does not say you will not go through anything. 

It's not saying you will avoid all trails and tribulations. 

It's saying when you go through something tough, you won't go through it alone. 

God will be with you. 

It's saying when you have to do something that seems too hard, it will not overwhelm you. 

It's saying when something happens that could damage you, you'll come out of it unharmed.  

I am sure that when I accepted Jesus that my life changed, I am sure it is now a million times better and I am sure I would make that same choice a thousand times over given the chance. 

I am also sure that it did not get easier, in fact for a season it became a lot harder as I fought to undo my 15 years worth of living in this world without Him. 

I did not know any better and in my blissful ignorance I did as I pleased and was left to face the mess of my past. 

Often it's so much harder and Jesus never promised it would not be. 

It's harder to not take the easy way out. 

It's harder to see the bigger picture. 

It's harder to move past moments I want to stay in. 

It's hard to do the right thing.

It's hard to look past how I feel and do what I know he is asking of me. 

Even when it's the last thing I want to. 

Because I know better now. 

He never said I would not go through raging rivers or that things would not get hot. 

He simply said I will not drown and I won't be burnt. 

And it's worth every moment. 

Believe.

Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!” (Luke 1:45 NIV)

This verse is the first thing I read this morning. 

A friends Mum posted it and to be honest a looked it up to see if said "He" not she. 

It's actually taking about Mary and Elizibeth. 

It's talking about after she has already believed that God is doing what He said he would do. 

It reminded me of one thing. 

God ALWAYS does what he says he will do. 

I have read countless verses on it and I feel like in this season more then ever I keep being reminded of it over and over again. 

I feel like it's easier to believe a promise when it's far off into the future, when it's something God has for you in years to come. 

The struggle to believe is probably more when it's just so close to happening and then things start going wrong. 

Or you start feeling like maybe you can't do it anymore? 

Or maybe you heard wrong and you have worked towards nothing? 

In these moments its even more important to stand on verses like this and believe that even when it does not look like it,

God fulfills his promises every single time. 

Following

On occasion I wake up and before I even have a decent thought I'm smashed with the feeling that I can't do what I know God is asking me to do. 

It's too big. 

It's too hard. 

How could you possibly think I am the right person for this? 

What if I can't do this?

Basically just doing a lot of useless complaining. 

I keep asking the same questions and getting the same answer. 

I open my bible and read something on hopes that it might tell me what will happen next. 

I read: 

"Be still and know..." 

"I know the plans I have for you" 

"Trust in The Lord with all your heart" 

I talk to friends about it. 

I hear: 

"God is backing you" 

"He's not setting you up to fail" 

While I know this is all true and valid and I believe it with my whole I always just want to know a little bit more, I'm the kind of person who wants to understand everything and if I don't I will forever keep trying to figure it out. 

Sometimes I want God to say more then "Just trust me, I have you" 

What? How do you have me? 

What does that mean? 

What are you going to do? 

Will you please just explain what you are doing? 

"Trust me" 

I do trust you but, 

What if this happens? 

What if that goes wrong? 

How is this going to look? 

I am constantly asking Him to explain every detail. 

To tell me what will happen next. 

To prepare me for what's around the corner. 

Like a nervous child who won't let go of her Fathers hand to run into the playground. 

Still He nudges me forward into what he has for me. 

He is nudging me into the darkness that only He can see. 

I need to trust His eyes not my own. 

Tell me what you can see God? 

"It's ok, I got this" 

And I don't have another option. 

I cannot trust anything or anyone apart from him. 

Because saying that I trust him and then acting as if I don't is the same as not trusting him at all. 

I must constantly remind myself that I know everything I need to know. 

I can see everything I need to see and when I can see nothing my only option is to go by what he can see. 

Sometimes that means following him into the dark. 

No longer her.

From the moment I started a real relationship with God I had written to him. 

I had always journaled before then but this was different. 

Lately I felt as though I should throw them away, but every time I went to I would read them and then I just couldn't. 

As annoyed as I got when I would read them because they showed the same pattern of my life. 

A pattern I no longer follow.

I just held on to them. 

The pile grew until I had a huge, heavy and dusty box of them. 

Today I resolved to just throw them without looking at them or thinking about why I should keep them. 

The box was heavy in more ways then one, but it was easy to let that part of me go. 

This is part of the reason why: 

The words that I place on paper must always be for the glory of the One who gives them to me. 

Just as the words from my lips must be. 

They must be of praise. 

They must bring honor. 

They must speak of his goodness and of his grace. 

Once there was a time where they were not so. 

They were of anger and brought dishonor to his name. 

They glorified my pain and made it become greater then He. 

I have never ridded myself of them. 

I have journals full of them. 

50 or so that say the same things over and over. 

They talk of thing that had me stuck there for so long. 

As a broken person who was set free time and time again but ended up going back to the same life. 

As many times as a tried. 

I could never throw them away. 

As if somehow I small part of me was still that person.

As if I could in some ways go back. 

But if I've been made new the old must really go. 

I cannot hold onto who I once was or  live out those words any longer. 

I must not hold on to them. 

So many people have told me that I am not that person anymore. 

I guess I've been keeping the words so prove that at one time I was. 

But then it always leaves a part of me there. 

In the back of my mind I could still at any moment be her. 

When the truth is, 

I am not. 

Dependent.

If there is one word I really do not like. 

It would be "dependent"

Here's what it means: 

1. dependent - relying on or requiring a person or thing for support, supply, or what is needed

2. dependent - contingent on something else

3. dependent - being under the power or sovereignty of another or others

It just sounds weak to me. 

To be honest I'd rather not. 

I don't really love letting other people do things for me, I mean I do, if I really need to. 

I try my best to avoid asking for help. 

I try to do everything for myself. 

I rely on myself a lot.

I guess I learnt to be independent early on. 

I had younger sisters who I helped look after. 

I came home after school alone. 

I learnt to cook so my Mum let me cook for the family. 

I moved out of home at an earlier age then almost all my friends. 

While these are not terrible qualities, they left me with myself as my number one source for everthing. 

God doesn't want me to live like that. 

He wants me to depend not only on myself. 

It still rubs me the wrong way. 

But it's all I am reading lately, it's coming up in conversations and I find myself having to depend on something or someone other then myself. 

Little by little things that I have been relying on such as my income, my own information about things are no longer enough. 

So I'm having to learn to be dependent. 

Firstly on him. 

Secondly on those he has placed in my world. 

I read all these verses that say "apart from me, you can do nothing" 

"Lean not on your own understanding" 

And "the one who called you is completely dependable" 

But then I keep trying to do it on my own. 

I keep relying on my own resources. 

Truth is, it's not enough and it never will be. 

Truth is, I cannot do this alone. 

I need Him. 

He created me so I would depend on Him and He created us for each other. 

So being dependent isn't actually weak, it means doing what he has called us to do together. 

It means being selfless and humble. 

It means walking in unity. 

It means having one cause. 

It means playing my part. 

And it means we are stronger together then we could ever be on our own. 

Trippin

If I keep my eyes on GOD, I won’t trip over my own feet. (Psalm 25:15 MSG)

So I trip over, like, A lot! 

I'll be walking along minding my own business, daydreaming no doubt and then I stumble...on nothing. 

It probably because I am terrible at watching where I am going, I try to look at everything all at once, I get distracted by everything in the entire world, it sounds like I am exaggerating but I am really not. 

So as a result I trip. 

I'm the first to admit that I am guilty of taking my eyes off God all too often, I regularly forget what's really important. 

I start something with the right motives to begin with, I tend to get carried away and forget Who I am doing it for that's when I start to trip. 

Things start going wrong and time and time again I am left wondering why it's not working out. 

It's because my eyes are in the wrong place. 

I am trying to look at everything around me while trying to follow where God is leading me. 

Thing is that's never gonna work. 

I think about it like going on a tour through a bush or something. 

The guide is there to show you the way, if your don't follow him you'll find yourself lost and since you don't know where you are you could be lost for a while. (I'm getting nervous just thinking about it) 

 

Our relationship with God is exactly like that. 

He is leading each of us on a different path and we need to follow him. 

It's easy to look at where he is leading someone else and want to go that way, but it's never gonna work for you. 

It's easy to look at what's happening around you like the disciples did when Jesus said they were taking the boat to the other side, but when they looked at the storm they were afraid. 

The thing Jesus said they were going to the other side. 

It's easy to get caught up in your own ideas and purposes and then wonder why it's not working out. 

Your tripping over your own feet because your not looking at Who is leading you. 

So keep your eyes on Him, He is taking you exactly where you need to be.