This journal holds a special place in my heart. It’s probably the ugliest one I own. But I’m okay with that. Because there’s a story behind it. Meaning to it. Significance.
When Clay and I were dating, I was anxious—I was so ready to marry this man! I was certain on our first date, so the seven months we dated seemed like an eternity.
About four months into our dating relationship, we went to family camp with our church. I bought this journal there. I wasn’t crazy about it, I’ll be honest; it was simply the best they had to offer. Little did I know God would use this journal to speak to me in a big way.
You see, during that season I felt both God and Clay were asking, “Do you trust me?” It was right around that time that Clay had actually asked me straight up, “Do you trust me?” in regards to him leading the pace and direction of our relationship. And I was most certain God was asking me the same.
As I looked down at my new journal one early morning at family camp, I noticed that small word on the cover I hadn’t taken notice of at the time I had purchased it.
Trust.
I couldn’t help but laugh. Here I was quickly picking out the least hideous journal I could find and running off to where I needed to be, and God was working all things together to communicate to me.
Our God is oh so creative. And so very clear.
In what area of your life are you struggling to surrender your trust to the Lord? Singleness? Dating? Your health? Your job?
release
True confession: I like to control things. Calendars, schedules, cleanliness, people. But God is doing a work in me to reveal to me that when I clench tightly to my own control, He gets robbed of glory.
This year He spoke to me with word “release.”
And that’s what this week is all about. It’s week 3 in our journey of Lent. It may be week 33 in our journey of trial, or week 333 in our journey of pain. But the same God who is sovereign over all of time is asking us still these four all important words:
Do you trust me?
In drafting this post I was further reminded of His creative and clear He is as I saw on my iPhoto that I had taken the photo from last week’s post the very morning Clay proposed to me—October 23. It was the very number God had just started to reveal to me around the time I bought this very journal. {See 10.23 photos from our engagement story!}
The definition of trust is this:
“firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something.”
It’s difficult to trust God in the midst of chronic pain, infertility, singleness, joblessness, and the like. But as Hebrews 10:23 reminds us, “Let us hold unswevingly to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful.”
Our God is faithful. He is most certainly is every single of those characteristics of the word “trust.” He is reliable, true, able, and strong. The question is, are we standing firm on the Rock that He is? On the foundation that is Him?
It’s the only one that will hold us up when we doubt, stumble, and fall. As the song goes, all other ground is sinking sand.
Comparison is sinking sand. Jealousy is sinking sand. Self pity is sinking sand. Doubt is sinking sand. Our relationship with God, made possible through the gift of the sacrifice of his Son Jesus Christ, is the only foundation that will last and outlast every struggle we face on this earth.
Once one problem is overcome, there will always be another for us to face. {I know, not much of a pep talk!} Getting engaged didn’t satisfy my every desire, being married hasn’t taken away all of my problems. I have endured quite the wilderness in 14 years of chronic pain.
And yet I find hope in and an ability to trust through Jesus very words He spoke in John 16:33, “In this world you will have trouble, but take heart! I have overcome the world.”
We don’t have to overcome it ourselves. We don’t have to control every little detail. We are simply called to release it all into the hands of this God we can trust.
Memorize it. Believe it. Use it as a weapon.
{And make it your phone background if ya like!}
