a breakthrough into trust

Trust in the Lord with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways submit to him,
and he will make your paths straight.

Do not be wise in your own eyes;
fear the Lord and shun evil.
This will bring health to your body
and nourishment to your bones.

Proverbs 3

If you know me well, then you would know I’ve had a struggle most all of my Christian life over trusting in God completely. Actually I would have not thought so during most of that time. I would have rationalized, or misunderstood my struggle as doing what I have to do to be responsible to fulfill my duty. Of course I’m not talking about perfect trust, which surely won’t be arrived at in this life. But a substantial trust, by which one really does cast one’s cares and life, and indeed all of life with the cares and concerns over others on the Lord.

For me it was over a matter that in no way I could fix, and seemed a point of danger. Either I could continue my own way and do what would be difficult to do, and in the end probably not foolproof (what is in this life?), or I could do what makes no sense to me.

The real tipping point for me was the experience of a debilitating fear which all but crushed me. Actually I had learned over the years, over the decades even, to go on with that, even though it most certainly hampered me. And a number of times in answer to prayer it was overcome through the Lord’s grace. But that is where I essentially lived.

A key verse in all of this for me is found in 1 John 4:

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.

This is a beautiful passage, and should be seen in context along with other passages in scripture which make it clear that being God’s children and living in fear are not compatible. Of course I don’t mean the fear of the Lord which is the beginning of knowledge: a right appreciation for who God is in his otherness. But that’s never separated from the love God is, either, though that love is not accepted by us in our sin.

But for years and years I struggled off and on, and to some degree mostly on over this sense of dread. I knew in my head one thing, but my heart failed to follow. So during short experiences when my heart did know something of that rest, it was exhilarating, and indeed intoxicating. But then would come the inevitable descent back into “reality,” and the ongoing struggle of all of that.

Am I home free now on this issue? No. I don’t think so. Ask me a year from now, if I’m still around and the Lord tarries. A time ago I seemed to enter into this breakthrough, but then fell back through some voice in my head which seemed to be my own mind. In carefully evaluating it, it was accusatory in nature, a sure sign that it was not from God. I descended into something which seemed all the worse.

Finally in desperation I was crying out to God. And a thought came to me: What if I simply trust God by letting God lead me. And such leading would be in a peace, a sense of what I should and should not do. As I recall I went to bed with that thought on my mind, woke up and yesterday morning wrote this post, went to work, and gradually seemed to enter into this rest. And by God’s grace I’ve remained in that place of imperfectly fully trusting in God, and not in myself. By the way, the Proverbs 3:5-6 passage quoted above came to me with a renewed emphasis a couple years or so back, as if God wanted to impress me with the importance of that passage for me. I included what follows because to so trust God even helps me physically, certainly impacting the emotions for good.

Does that mean I’m on top of the world now, and not down? No, no way. I’ve already experienced being down over an issue in the world and most importantly in the church. And I’ll be down at times over my own problems, as well. And does this mean that it’s now automatic, that I will continue on in this new way? No, absolutely not. I must continue to trust with the new challenges that come, big and small. And learn to walk in this way more and more. With others in and through Jesus.