Trusting God: When I give everything to God. EVERYTHING! Episode 2, Pt. 2

In part two of Trusting God, find out what happened when I turned everything over to God!

Transcript

“It’s the Salt for me”

Podcast Episode 4

“Trusting God” Pt. 2

Welcome to Episode 4 of “It’s the Salt for me, brought to you by The Salty Christian.” I’m your host, Marie. I invite you to subscribe, share and comment below. New episodes every Thursday!

Last week, I talked about trusting God. If you listened to that episode then you know that during this process, I discovered that while I have forgiven God, I don’t fully trust Him. 

I prayed and searched the Bible for answers and a question kept gnawing at me. I began to wonder if faith and trust are the same thing. I do have faith in God. I believe that God is who He says he is and will do what He says He will do. He has proven this to me on more than one occasion in my life. 

There was a time years ago when I had been praying fiercely for a lot of things to happen that included a lot of different players. I knew it wouldn’t happen overnight and that so many different things would have to take place for my prayers to be answered. I had been praying for several years when out of nowhere, it took one trial for every prayer I prayed to be answered. Every prayer. It was one of the biggest tests of faith that I had ever encountered up to that point in my life. This trial brought me to my knees (yes, I’ve had more than a few of these in my life). At the very start of this trial, I gave it to God. I chose to trust Him and do exactly what He told me to do. I started to see little things happening that wouldn’t have otherwise happened – with every person that I had prayed about. People were going to church that had never been to church, relationships were restored. Families brought together all because I CHOSE to TRUST God even if I didn’t understand why this was happening. I realized that when God backs me into a corner and I have nowhere else to turn, I always choose to trust Him. Blindly, freely, in any way necessary to make it through the storm. So, yes, I have faith in God, but I think trusting Him is a choice. We either choose to trust God blindly, or we don’t. For me, when the ish hits the fan, I always choose to trust Him and I’ve never regretted that decision. When bad things happen I have complete trust in God and I am comforted and calm through the storm.

I used to keep a journal and through this journal, I would have conversations with God. I would write prayers and outcomes. And just worship Him. I would especially journal even more throughout trials so I always had a reference to what God had been doing in my life.

From time to time, I would go back and read what I had written. I discovered a lot of things going back over that journal. I felt like a lot of times, I had asked for it in a round-about way – not exactly the trials, but the outcomes.  During the trials, I trusted God to lead me. Give me answers, love me through it. Give me power, strike down the enemy. Not only did the trials end in my favor, but, it seemed like through trials is when all of my prayers are answered. Not only that, but in this particular trial, I feel like God prepared me for it before it even started. Sounds crazy but seriously, in hindsight, things happened before that trial would benefit the outcome of that trial. Like had these things not happened, it could have ended completely different. Like God gave me a blueprint to get through it. During the trial, I was completely focused on God. Waiting for Him to speak to me. To tell me what to do and how to do it. I remember leaving the house one night after midnight because God told me to take a Bible and lay it on the steps of a specific building. I did it. He had me doing all kinds of things that I wouldn’t normally do. I trusted him completely and He brought me through. 

I think the problem, for me, is trusting Him during the times that there are no trial. That’s when I think I know better than God. Like I can handle my business and I don’t need to go to God for every little issue that comes up. Nothing bad happens, and It’s easier to trust myself when I am winning. Ultimately, when I have relied on myself a little too much is when God puts me in my place to show me that I need to rely on Him for everything. It’s like a vicious cycle that He keeps putting me through because apparently, I am the child who just refuses to do as daddy says. 

When I really think about it, yes, trials have happened in my life and at the time, I honestly thought they would kill me but I am still standing. It didn’t kill me. It made me stronger. It turned my eyes to God. It showed me that God is the only person who is really in control. God brought me through some of the darkest times in my life better than before. How is it possible that one day I’m not sure I’m gonna make it and the next, I thanking and praising God for His favor? 

I know that trust is the foundation of any relationship. If I can trust certain people in my life with my life, how could I not trust God with it?!  I think a lot of time, I end up broken because I haven’t trusted God and He needs to remind me who He is. 

Best believe though that when I pray for things now, I make sure to add a disclaimer that says, “…and please do not allow anything bad to have to happen to make these prayers possible.” 

So, last week, I focused on trusting God. I gave in wholly and completely. I stopped trying to play God. I handed everything that came up over to God – which wasn’t easy. When something would come up, I found myself starting to trip, but quickly checked myself and said, I trust you God. I give it to you,” take my burdens. 

It worked! I didn’t really worry about anything. But, have you ever noticed that when you make up your mind to do something, something always happens to try and take you down? Well, at the beginning of this little exercise, I got covid. My mom who is in a memory facility got covid, my husband got covid and my sister got covid. So, I was pretty much laid up the whole time not feeling good so I gave it to God. I couldn’t leave the house, couldn’t go to work. I wasn’t exactly bummed out that I missed an entire week of work cause those people were on my very last nerve. I was even contemplating quitting cause they’re just unappreciative and I had had enough. I’m beginning to think that God took me out of that situation for a week because he knew I needed a minute, and maybe they needed to be checked. So, thank you God. I trust you. I trusted Him to take care of my mom, my husband, and my sister. I put it in His hands. It was all I could do. We are all good now. I went back to work. They’re still ungrateful and I’m salty that I’m still there, but, I trust that God has a plan. 

Now I’ll get to my questions that I had last week.

My first question was:

1.      Why should I trust God, and, does trusting God mean doing nothing on my part to get the ball rolling? To answer the first part of that question, I’ll use:

a.      Proverbs 28:26: He who trusts in his own heart is a fool, But whoever walks wisely will be delivered.

Simply put, this means, If you trust only in yourself and your own heart, you are a fool. 

b.      Jeremiah 17:7-8: “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, And whose hope is the Lord.
8 For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters,
 Which spreads out its roots by the river,
 And will not [a]fear when heat comes;
But its leaf will be green,
And will not be anxious in the year of drought,
Nor will cease from yielding fruit. 

To me, this says, imagine being a tree that is planted by water and your roots are spread out by the river. You don’t have to worry when the heat comes, your leaves will stay green. When we trust in the Lord and put our hope in the Lord, we don’t need to be anxious because we will continue to produce fruit. 

c.      Isaiah 26:3: You will keep him in perfect peace,
Whose mind is stayed on You, Because he trusts in You.

Can you imagine having perfect peace?! No anxiety? No fear? This is what God tells us in Isaiah 26:3! If we keep ourselves focused on the Lord, we will have perfect peace! An inexplicable inner peace. I don’t know about you, but I am so down for peace. 

Phillipians 4:6: Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

I think this is still perfect peace! Instead of worrying, pray. Tell God what you need and trust God to handle it. I think that worrying is doubting God’s ability to take care of our requests. When we doubt God, we can’t have perfect peace. We have to trust God fully.

2.      The second part of that question was, does trusting God mean doing nothing on my part to get the ball rolling? To answer the 2nd part of that question, I’ll use this example:

If you need a job, you should pray to God to help you find a job, but then you need to take the step of actually looking for a job. We can’t expect God to do everything when He has given us the ability to take care of some things ourselves. While I didn’t get a definitive answer on this, I think it is implied. I’m still a little salty that “God helps those who helps themselves,” isn’t in the Bible but I do believe that we have to do our part.

3.      My 3rd question was, Is TRYING to trust God enough to begin with or does it have to be all or nothing?

a.      After looking through the Bible and finding verses on trusting God, noted above, I really feel like it is an all or nothing thing. I can’t partially trust God or only trust God when it’s convenient for me. I need to trust God like I am in the biggest trial of my life every day. Those are the times that I have always been without worry, fear or anxiety. I had perfect peace. Nothing but God himself could disturb my peace. How could I not want that all the time? I think we just make the choice to trust God no matter what and let the chips fall where they may. God works everything together for our good so why not just trust Him?

My last question was, “How do I continue to try and trust God when it APPEARS that He is helping everyone be great except me?

To that, I’ll say this: God knows what He is doing. Sometimes you feel like people are doing so great. But I’ve come to realize that people allow you to see what they want you to see. You never really know what happens behind closed doors. Behind those doors could live depression, anxiety, sadness, loneliness, fear, and the list goes on. Some people are better at playing the game than others. For me, people have only known what I’ve allowed them to know. So why do I think other people are different? Behind some of those pictures online may be a grief that is unimaginable. A heart-ache that only God can heal. A hurt so deep that it feels like it will never go away. I know I’m not the only one. I know that everyone is different in how they want others to perceive them. I just need to continue to be happy for everyone. Clap for everybody. I may feel a little salty, but I know my God is coming. No, God doesn’t love me any less. Honestly, sometimes, I don’t listen. Sometimes, I bring things on myself. I have a full instruction manual and in most instances, have chosen not to follow it . How happy could I be? Now, I choose God. I choose to trust God on the goodness he has shown me in my life up to this point and I’ve decided that I ain’t gon’ worry ‘bout nobody else’s business!

John 7:24 says, “Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment.

Sometimes when I see things, I judge by what I see, but God looks at the heart. I feel like the Bible tells us we aren’t supposed to judge, but, now I feel like we can if we are looking at the heart of a person. For instance, if we see someone do a kindness for someone else, we make a positive judgement about that that person. I think positive judgements are ok. When we see people living their best lives, we need to be happy for them, not salty because we are in a different place.  

I hope you’ve enjoyed this episode on trust. I hope that you too will decide to fully trust God in everything that you do.  If you went through this journey with me, let me know how it worked out for you in the comments. I’d love to hear from you!

I again invite you to subscribe, share and comment below.

I’ll catch you on the next episode of “It’s the Salt for Me.” Until then, be blessed and be a blessing.