#RejoiceInHope - Head in the Sand, Heart in His Hands
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Learning to trust God is a habit that I will be working on from now until eternity. For the first half of my adult life I don't think I really had any idea what trusting God was actually all about. Oh, I prayed about things. I could quote Bible verses about faith. David may have been able to say, "When I am afraid, I will put my trust in you" but I would have had to say, "When I am afraid...well...I'm just really afraid!"
What was I really trusting in? My own best efforts? My plans? My control-freak attention to detail? God had to circle me in, to reduce my options through the circumstances He allowed in my life, to bring me to the place where I had nothing left to lean on. That is, except Him. Yep, it came down to that - trusting in nothing or no one else other than the Creator of heaven and earth.
When I tried taking my first baby steps of the faith, my flesh told me, "This is a terrible idea - this is so irresponsible!" There I was, just doing nothing but praying and looking to God with my problems. It felt like I was putting my head down in the sand and hoping it would all work out all right.
"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," I read in Romans 15:13. "Holy Spirit," I wrote in my journal, "I can only do this by Your power. I cannot trust apart from You. I need to overflow with hope for my family's sake!" To be sure, it was a fragile trust at first, but as Calvin Miller wrote, "Fragile trust is stronger than staggering self-reliance."
And slowly God worked in me. I had to ask myself, Am I willing to accept circumstances as from His hand and accept them with gratitude, as the cup He was offering? Or would I continue to charge Him, as Elisabeth Elliot used to say, with "a mistake in His measurements, with misjudging the sphere in which I could best learn to trust Him?"
This is an entry from Thrive: Journey Into Grace by Darlene Sala, Bonnie Sala, and Luisa Reyes-Ampil, available at OMF Lit Bookshops and our online store, shop.omflit.com, for P350.
Join Darlene, Bonnie, and Luisa as they take you through their own unique journeys through life. In this book, you will meet three women who are learning what it truly means to walk with God. They do not claim to be contemporary Proverbs 31 women who are perfect in every way. Instead, they are real women who are honest enough to tell you about their good and bad days.Darlene says, “Our prayer is that these readings, these snippets of truth we’ve stumbled upon in our quiet moments with Him, will encourage you to press into Him daily as you travel your own journey into grace.”
There are many devotionals for women but what makes this different is that three women are talking to readers. These women write from their own unique perspectives, talking about their relatable experiences and providing practical and godly wisdom from God’s Word.