You said You will keep me well and safe
Well here I am, wounded and hurting
You said You will provide all I need
Well here I am hungry and wanting
You said I will be a winner, so strong
Yet here I am, weak, fallen and losing
God, how can You be so wrong?
And how can I keep trusting?
A friend and I were chatting when he had to leave late at night to attend to an emergency. I was asking questions and giving unsolicited advises in the name of safety but beneath what appeared as concern, he discerned my fear and was not having it. He put up a wall into which I ran headlong and shattered. My claim as a safety professional could not disguise the fear I wasn’t acknowledging as God’s voice came through later, “Every time you choose your fear above My Word, You are calling Me a liar. You are saying, ‘You really cannot do what You claimed You can.’ In every area you do not accept My will as the ultimate, you are proclaiming your distrust for My way. You are declaring that I am not perfect, I am not good, I cannot be trusted, I cannot deliver, in that area of your life.”
Of course, I trust God! Those expressions are not what I would associate myself with yet unconsciously, that is exactly what we say: calling God a liar whenever we discard His Word for the circulating news, past experiences, and fear of the future, all of which feed our fear. God’s promises are not to make us delusional or irresponsible. Rather, they inspire the faith we need to take the right steps to where God is calling and leading us. Every time we refuse to follow God for whatever reasons, we display our distrust in His ability to do what He has promised. Yes, our faith may have been disappointed in the past and that can become a limitation but guess what? When our faith is hinged on the outcomes, it definitely will be disappointed. However, when they are anchored on God’s infallible nature, His Name and Word, then it is easier to keep trusting and to keep following Him irrespective of the outcomes we experience in our walk of faith.
The faith of many have suffered shipwreck not because God failed but because our faith did not bring the results we expected. And who best to blame in such situations but God! Yet, as I learned from this friend, maturity is not even having the fearless faith I once experienced prior to my encounter and struggles with fear. Maturity is coming into the place where our faith in God and His Word is in readiness to surrender and accept His will however it comes, whatever it brings or take. I don’t know what area of your life you are struggling with right now, maybe God is calling you and everyone of us out of our efforts to keep things well and tight, out of the place of trying to understand it and work it out, out of the place of fearing what next, into that place of surrendering to whatever He brings or takes, however it works out for us. That is the place of our peace. May God help us. Amen.
Blessings
Glory!