Trust

I still need reminders. Almost daily reminders. In fact, at times, I have to just set them on my phone because I need to be reminded so badly. I’m walking down the hall and my phone goes off. I’ll admit, at times I’m already thinking, “Who needs what now?” I pull the device out of my pocket and read the reminder that I have set...that I needed to set...because I am forgetful. I am self-reliant. And I am a slow-learner. “Trust God...not yourself.”

You would think the guy who was given a 4,000 square foot building for one dollar to feed the community wouldn’t need a reminder that God can do way more than he can. You would think the guy that drove fifty miles on back roads with the gas light on carrying 1,000 pounds of squash at 6 A.M. and every gas station he passed being closed would have it ingrained in his mind that God really does “got it.” The guy that stood in an empty building with his wife on Wednesday and prayed for food to give out on Saturday morning and the tables were breaking because of the amount of food they received unorchestrated over the next two days, wouldn’t need someone to tell him who is in control of all things. You would think that the guy who could literally tell you all day how many amazing things he has seen God do wouldn’t need a reminder. 

But he does. Daily. Life teaches us to be self-reliant, problem solvers. I can do it. I will figure it out. I can find the answer. Until I can’t. Because some problems this life gives me I just can’t solve. Like when I am standing there talking to the grandfather who retired to help with his family because his granddaughter was born with down syndrome and talking about her just brings tears to his eyes. Or when I am sitting at the table listening to the mom who has poured over thirty years into her children who are fighting a battle with drugs, or being an atheist, or desiring to have a sex change. Sometimes we just have to trust God. 

I don't know that anyone ever really taught me to trust God. I was taught to believe in God. I was taught to obey God. I was even taught to be afraid of God. I sat in a lot of Sunday school classes with a lot of good people. I don’t really recall being taught how to trust Him. I don't really recall the people that challenged me by saying things like, “You don't believe God can do that?”

Life has taught me to trust God. Maybe that is the best way to learn it. Maybe all along the way people were trying to teach me to trust Him, but I just needed to experience it for myself. I mean, it’s pretty clear even today that I need reminders. I’m slow. I trust myself. Hang on...I need to set a reminder on my phone. 

I pray for the ability to raise my son and to impact people with a simple theme...trust God. He can do far more than I can. So it was really a humbling moment for me when I went into my nine-year old’s room to say prayers before bed and he asked for God to heal the little cut on his finger. He already gets it. And that’s really cool. Because I struggle with asking God to heal my fingers every day. 

Father, my prayer today is simple, heal that finger and teach me how to trust You in the smallest of things, like a nine-year old. You can do it way better than me.

“He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them. And He said, ‘Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 18:2-3