17 Nov Trust in Him

I can’t believe I’m hearing this song again. This summer, the Lord was reaching out to me over and over again through a song, and well I just wasn’t getting it.

Lauren Daigle’s “Trust in You” came on every time I would get in the car, shuffle my iPod or turn on Pandora. My friend finally said, “You know I’m in my car all the time, and that song doesn’t come on like that for me. You might want to pay attention to that.”

Thus began my prayers and search for why this theme of trust was coming up so much for me. If you asked me, “Do you trust in the Lord?” I would answer with a resounding yes! When I was wrestling with the fear of going to Kenya two years ago, I came to a moment in my faith where I decided I trusted in the Lord with my life. I felt strong in the truth that He was with me everywhere, and that He would never leave me. I believed in His sovereignty over my life no matter where my geographical location was. So, that is where I rested for awhile, in the peace of knowing that the Lord is sovereign, all powerful, all knowing and I trusted in Him with my life. Sounds great right? No trust issues here. Ha!!

The Lord began to challenge me in ways that I felt I had control over. I began to wrestle with the tension of how can I so easily trust the Lord with my life and with the big ideas, yet day to day I was not aligning that same trust to the decisions I made.

Now that He had my attention, church sermons, songs, books I was reading, conversations with biblical community and prayer began a journey of wrestling in my soul with questions like:

Are you giving to God generously?

Are you taking your thoughts captive?

Are you living on mission for the Lord’s kingdom or for your own kingdom?

Through these questions he showed me that in reality I was trusting more in myself than in His truths for me. One that I find the most difficult to grasp is the the second question, because so much of it is subconscious. These are some of the revelations the Lord shared with me, and that I currently wrestle with on a daily basis. “Taking your thoughts captive” is a big one for me living in the beautiful season of singleness. This world does not value the ways of the kingdom, and over and over again I found myself allowing worldly ideas, opinions, sayings, and thoughts dictate my feelings about my life. I was giving the enemy free reign of my thoughts. If I am weak in my thoughts, there he will be. Recently I did the Armor of God study, and thank you, Priscilla Shirer, for reminding me that I must gird myself in truth (Ephesians 6:14). If I don’t know the truths of God, how will I be able to stand against the schemes of the devil? It becomes this cycle, and I can get caught in it with one thought. If I trust in God’s word and what He says about who He is and who I am, then every time I let thoughts like “the Lord is holding out on me because I am not married,” then I am letting the truths of this world dictate what I believe about God, and that does not reveal a heart of trust.

“I began to wrestle with the tension of how can I so easily trust the Lord with my life and with the big ideas, yet day to day I was not aligning that same trust to the decisions I made.”

He calls us to take every thought captive (2 Corinthians 10:5) not just a few of them, but every one of them. The truth says that a mind set on the Lord brings peace and life, and that we should dwell on His thoughts (Romans 8:6). (Philippians 4:8) The reality is, I was letting those thoughts run in my mind like wildfire, but those thoughts did exactly what the devil wanted them to do; distract me. They distracted me from the Lord and His calling for me. I am called to be an Ezer and Satan knows I cannot do that when I’m thinking about how old I am and my time line, and that everyone else around me is married with children and I’m not. I cannot pour my heart out to middle school girls when my mind is preoccupied with waiting on the next season of life. I cannot fully display my trust in the Lord if I’ve convinced myself that this is just a season and I am waiting to get out of it. No! The Lord needs me in this season, with my strengths and my personality to do the work that He needs right now for today. There is no waiting, it is a present and active life He calls me to live. And I must trust in Him.

“The mind feasts on what it focuses on. What consumes my thinking will be the making or the breaking of my identity.” -Lysa Terkeurst, Uninvited

If I trust in Him, this life that I so freely give to Him in big ways, I should also be reflecting that in all the small ways, even down to what I think on a daily basis. Capturing my thoughts and aligning them with truth, will inevitably guide me further into giving generously out of obedience, as well as living on mission for the Lord’s kingdom. The less I think of myself, and the more I think of Him and His truths, the more ways my life will display an unwavering trust in the One True God, and ultimately guide me to live out my calling.

Lord, I pray I see you and hear you when you are pursuing me. I pray I have ears to hear and an open heart when the community you have so dearly blessed me with speaks truth into my life. I pray I take an active firm stand in your word against the schemes of the devil and seek to trust you in all that I do. I pray I seek out opportunities to live out my calling as an Ezer to your people. Lord forgive me for when I fall short, because I know I will. Thank you for loving me through it and being my rock. You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast because they trust in you. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, the Lord himself is the Rock eternal. Isaiah 26:3-4

-Caroline Reynolds, Downtown