Courage to Trust

This year has really brought about the question "do you trust me?" several times in my life. Do I trust God? Do I trust the people God has placed in leadership and mentoring roles in my life?

I have had to seriously consider do I trust them? Sometimes I wonder why God is doing things the way He is. I question his plan. If he has given me passions and desires for certain things, then why am I not able to live out those passions and desires? I keep expecting God to bring about new life from things I invest in, but I am not seeing new life. It becomes frustrating to me, and I have to ask myself, "Do I trust God?" And immediately I answer, YES! Of course I trust God, but it is one thing for my brain to say I trust him and a completely different thing for my heart to agree (silly heart again!). I tend to just run head first into things and I trust God to go before me, but when I struggle trusting God is when my hands have to get out of the way of the work. When it becomes less about me doing the work and more about Him doing the work, and the holy spirit doing the work. That is when I really start to wonder.... what are you doing God? I don't like to wait on His timing all the time. As I struggle with this it is a daily battle of recognizing I have to trust God that 1. He has me exactly where he wants me for the time (a whole other story!) 2. His timing is perfect and I have to trust that He will work to bring new life to things I invest my time into, and 3. trust that His desires are for my best, and He may not always give me exactly what I THINK is best for me. I have to really build up some courage to let go of a few things and really trust with both my head and my heart. It means that I give up some control in a few situations, and spend a lot of time on my knees praying and pouring my heart out to the One who loves me most, and then I leave it in HIS capable hands.

So this trust thing trickles down into so many other places in my life as well. I mean with school, volunteer work, church work. There are several places where God has placed people in my life that I have to trust they are making the best decisions. Many of the decisions they make affect me in some way, and I have to trust they really want what is best for me and in turn the people I am reaching out to as well. Not only people above me in certain jobs, but even mentors and friends. Trusting that they genuinely care about me and aren't just trying to squash what I really want. There are so many times I hold so tightly to what I want to happen, that I don't listen (I may hear them, but don't take it to heart) to the people around me and I may get what I want, but sometimes without the outcome I hoped would happen.

THUS, this week I have started releasing a bit of my will (strong will) and started to really try to trust the people around me and the God who loves me. It is going to require some biting of my tongue, some time spent praying (maybe a lot of time spent praying!) and some relaxing on my part to know that God is really in control. I may not know exactly what is going to happen, but that is okay... I can trust that God does know what is going to happen.