NEW BEGINNINGS: HOW TO TURN YOUR LIFE AROUND IN SEVERAL, NOT-SO-EASY STEPS; #3 Trust in God

 TRUST IN GOD

Some years ago, I was teaching a marriage enrichment class for my church.  I invited some friends so that I would have a few familiar faces in the audience.  One of my friends told me that she would take the class, but her husband wouldn’t because, as he put it, “We’re not broken.”  Another friend happened to be passing by and heard her.  She smiled and said, “Oh, but Sister, we’re all a little broken.”

All of us are a little broken, some more than others.  When we know we have no one to blame for our mess except ourselves, we often lose faith, not just in ourselves, but in God as well. “Why,” we ask, “would the God who created the Universe be interested in helping me when the mess I am in is my own fault?” God Himself told Moses: For behold, this is my work and my glory – to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.  (Moses 1:30) You are His work. You are His glory. You matter to Him. We may not have the strength alone to "fix" our own brokenness.  But He can, and will.

You are not the first to ask “Why?” King David wrote: When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou has ordained; What is man, that thou are mindful of him?. . For thou has made him a little lower than the angels . . . (Psalm 8: 3-5) I understand that the original Hebrew text reads thou has made him a little lower than the gods. What a powerful testimony of how much you and I mean to Him!

We can learn to trust that God can. Remember the unknown, subconscious area God can help us access (Step #1)? Remember that God shows us our weaknesses so that we can repent and He can make weak things strong in us (Step #2) Trusting that God can do both of these things constitutes Step #3.

In the first step, I asked that you take an honest look at your life.  We can’t ask Him to fix us if we don’t recognize that we are broken and in serious need of fixing. In the next step, I asked that you have hope in His ability to save.  Now, I am asking that you put your own will and pride aside and ask Him to take charge. 

The way I worded it was to say, “God, I am unhappy and I don’t even know what questions to ask, much less know any answers.  Please, read my heart.” And He did.

I love this little prayer I found online. That says it all.  The surrender is the surrender of self, of will, of pride.  It is saying Thy will be done and meaning it. Then, when you have prayed yourself empty, as it were, be still and listen and know that He is God.  Let Him fill you back up with the answers you haven’t got.

When I said my prayer of submission, I listened.  The impression I received seemed on the surface to have nothing to do with what was troubling my heart. Nevertheless, I followed and did what I was impressed to do. I was asked to live a particular commandment 100 percent, nothing wavering.  No more half-way gestures.  Just complete obedience.  In so doing, I found that he was able to do far more with my life than what I was doing on my own.  In so doing, my life was changed.  I’m not going to tell you which single concrete thing you should choose to do 100 percent.  We are not all weak in the same things.  What God told me in answer to my prayer might be very different from what He will tell you. But once He tells you, have the faith to commit to doing it without wavering. Do so consistently, even if things don’t seem to be changing.  Trusting God also means trusting His timing. We show our trust and our faith by the way we live. Here are some steps that may help.

Things to do for this week:

• Continue to pray every day. 
• Continue to read at least one verse of scripture every day. (You might want to look in the concordance and find scriptures that related specifically to Jesus Christ.)
• Move forward with obedience to live the one specific commandment God has impressed upon your heart until keeping that commandment becomes natural.

    May God  bless and keep you on your journey.

© Kathleen Rawlings Buntin Danielson January 2021

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