How God Taught Me to Trust Him in All Things Part 1

Do you ever have those times that you just know God is trying to show you something, trying to teach you a lesson? Just recently this happened with me, again. It seemed like everywhere I turned, He was showing me what His word says about worrying versus trusting God. At first, I just felt Him nudging me that way, putting it on my heart - all the aspects of trusting God.

My heart had really been burdened about being real and open with others, just being myself and not worrying about what the world thought. You already know this if you've read some of my most recent posts. Well, in preparation for our church's upcoming IF gathering I decided to pick up a book by one of the speakers and read it as a way to get fired up and ready. The Lord directed me to Jen Hatmaker's book "For the Love" and I cannot even begin to tell you how much I love this book! I really need to do a review post about it soon. Anyway, I was talking to one of the other coordinators for our event and she said she was reading the same book! We had both picked it up and started reading it about the same time, not knowing the other one was doing the same thing. I love when God does little things like that!

Then, my daughter and I were asked to provide childcare at a local church during a Friday morning women's bible study. This was the first time childcare was to be provided, so we knew there was a chance we wouldn't have any children this time. We figured we would just go back home if no one showed up, but one of the lovely ladies leading the study gave us the book as a thank you for being there and asked us to sit in on the study if no one arrived. Sure enough, no one showed up and we stayed for the study. It is a 12 week study on calming your anxious heart, not worrying but instead, trusting God. A lot of it lined up with what I had been reading in "For the Love"!! Okay Lord, I think you are hinting at something.

The next evening we had our regular weekly home bible study group, we call it fellowship. It is just a group of us that get together each week at someone's home, eat dinner and one of us leads a bible study (occasionally we watch a movie or have game night). Guess what the bible study was about?! Yep, worry. I was thinking, okay Lord, I get it, you are definitely trying to get my attention on this. The funny thing is that I honestly didn't think I worried that much. I mean yeah, I do the normal mom worry about her children when they go somewhere, etc., but I thought I had really grown in the area of not worrying over the past few years. Obviously, God thought I needed a little refresher course!

In my little bitty scope of the world, I'm thinking God is trying to teach me not to worry about my family and what may or may not happen to them. Stop thinking I need to pray "please keep them safe Lord" every time one of my teenage sons drives off. Or "please return him home to us this evening Lord" when my husband leaves for work. Now, let me stop for a minute and say that within the last few months in our community that we have had two young women lose their husbands and suddenly become widows, as well as a young 15 year old girl being killed in a car accident. It really makes you stop and think just how suddenly loved ones can be taken from us - so I'm sure I had been praying those little prayers for safety much more frequently the last couple months. This was the lesson I thought I was supposed to be learning, "Stop worrying about them. Even if something were to happen, I am here for you.

"Do not be anxious, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God." Philippians 4:6

I was wrong. God was preparing me for something else, something that completely changed my perspective.

But God knew. He knew I needed to be grounded in this lesson of trusting God before I discovered...

my 16 year old had not given his life to Christ like we thought, and what was worse was that he wasn't sure he wanted to.

Heartbreak. What? Why? I don't understand! At all!!

I cried. I prayed. I asked my son questions he couldn't answer.

My prayer went from "God, please keep him safe" to "God, please don't let him die before He accepts you as his Savior".

Desperate prayers. More desperate than I have ever felt. Ever.

Never in my life had I wanted something for someone so badly. Never had I felt so much urgency for the lost. Never had I understood more clearly how desperately God wants his children to accept him.

God didn't just want me to learn to trust Him in all things, He wanted me to learn compassion for the lost. To feel the urgency of sharing the gospel with others.

I will share the rest of this story in my next post, because I want to share the details of it and this post is already getting rather wordy.

However, I won't leave you hanging ~ praise God, my son did give his life to Christ!

I hope you will click over to the next post as I continue the story and share how it happened and what God taught me.

Blessings my friends,

Rashel

Part 2 is here