Maybe a lesson that you knew for sure that God was trying to teach you?
The recurring theme, the title of the lesson plan in my life is TRUST!
As I look back at the events in my life over the last couple of years, it is plain to see. I can almost hear the question being asked "Do you Trust Me?"
My quick answer would be yes, but upon examination it appears that I hesitate quite a bit. Things scare me and cause me to want to draw back. I have tendencies like a two year old and I want to throw fits when things don't go how I had planned. I want to give up when dreams become to heavy to continue to carry. And yet it is in all of those moments and so many more that I hear the question being asked..."Do You Trust Me?"
A couple of weeks ago I boarded a flight to Houston with my daughter. I was excited about our trip and wasn't too concerned about the flight. Once you fly for seventeen hours, a two hour flight seems like a piece of cake. That was until I looked at the weather forecast and saw that there were thunderstorms in Houston waiting to greet us upon our arrival. I need to let you know something about me...I do not enjoy flying. The actual flying part is not too bad, it is the turbulence that causes my hands to sweat and my stomach to knot up. So when I saw thunderstorms in our flight path, I began to pray. I asked God to calm the storms and smooth out the air. (This prayer started days before our flight.) As we boarded the plane to leave, my daughter and I grabbed hands and prayed for our trip. We talked about God creating the wind, so He certainly had the power to calm it.
The flight was a little bumpy but not too bad until we were about an hour out of Houston. The attendants had just given us our drinks and crackers. Then the pilot comes on and informs us that it is about to get rough. We were told to hold on to our drinks and tray tables. I had a death grip on my coke and tray. I was praying and trying to remind myself that I was the adult and needed to hold it together. My daughter fell asleep which I was so envious of her ability to just catch some zzz's. It got BAD! We were swaying from side to side and bouncing up and down. I did not like it ONE BIT!
In the midst of this patch of bad air, my prayers changed. I was no longer just asking for the air to be smoothed out by Creator God. I began to cry out to Abba Father saying "Daddy, I'm scared! I don't like this! Daddy, please make this stop!"
In about fifteen minutes, the air smoothed out and I wanted to lay in the floor and cry. Not because I was scared of flying but because I knew what had just happened. I had just gone through a lesson in trust. I had to come face to face with one of my greatest fears. I had to trust that He was in control and that He had me tightly in his grasp.
That was a couple of weeks ago and today I am still trying to really learn this lesson. I am weary from waiting. I know all the good christian things that I should say and more importantly that I should be doing, but if I'm honest I am just worn out. We had hoped for news of progress to come this week from Africa and yet what we got was more of the same. The report is still not done. It could be a week or two or three or four... you get the picture. I so want what God wants for me and my family but it is really hard to continue on when there is no end in sight.
I read a devotional about Abraham yesterday. It was out of Genesis and was the passage where he was instructed to sacrifice Issac. I read the whole passage and was really struck at how Abraham was able to walk up the mountain. How was he able to put one foot in front of the other and continue on to face the unimaginable? What was running through his mind? What questions was he asking?
Those are all questions I am still thinking on today. Abraham was just a man. He was not super human or anything. What did he possess that gave him the strength to continue to walk when you know he wanted to run the other way. The answer is that he trusted God. He trusted the promise that God had made to him. I want to trust God like that. I want to trust Him when times are hard and relatively easy. I want to trust without hesitation. I want to press on when everything in me wants to run the other way.
A trust like that requires that my feet are firmly planted on the truth The truth of who God is and who I am as His adopted daughter. It also requires that I fix my gaze on Him and not the circumstances around me. Knowing this, I have to think that as Abraham climbed the mountain he wasn't thinking of what he was about to do but rather Who he was about to worship!
