Ok God, I'll trust you but...

October 15, 2008
Ok, God, I’ll trust you, but…

Sometimes I amuse myself and then I think if I find amusement in my own illogical reasoning, how much more God gets amusement out of the silly things we try to do. It seems that whenever I want to trust God for something I always put a stipulation on it. Why is it so hard to simply trust him? God says to have “faith like a child” but I think most of us are very young when we loose that faith in humans. Maybe it was the time I jumped in the pool and my dad let me go all the way under water before grabbing me and then I was always cautious when jumping in the pool if someone said that they would catch me…would they really? Or maybe I lost it when I realized that mommy couldn’t take away the pain when I scraped my elbows when I crashed on my purple scooter…I trusted that she could make me better, but why did my elbows still hurt? Would all my scrapes hurt? I’ve naively thought that in my growth in my relationship with Christ that eventually things like trust would come more easily and naturally, or that I would reach a point when I would have completely mastered faith and could then move on to master other areas of the Christian walk. Maybe, among other things, it is one of those areas that I will always struggle with. It seems that as I’ve become older and the issues in my life and this world have become more complex it has also become more difficult for me to trust God. I find myself in a lack of faith resulting in putting stipulations on my prayers; “God, I’ll trust you to find a mate for me but only if you find one within the next 5 years” or “God, I’ll trust you to put me in the place for a job that you want me but it has to be on the west coast of the US.” My favorite one I caught myself doing was this “God, please keep me healthy and strong physically and be able to manage my weight better but please allow me to still eat icecream.” Huh!? After I prayed that the other night I stopped, thought about it, and then laughed out loud. I imagine God saying to himself, “Oh, my daughter, why don’t you trust me wholly in all areas of your life whether they are major or minor things. Don’t you know that I have plans for you? Plans to prosper you and not to harm you? Plans to bring you hope and a future?” Unlike my experiences with putting my faith and trust in humans, God has never let me down, he has always provided, always been faithful to me. Sometimes I forget about the things which I am trusting God to provide for me on a daily basis; food, clothing, a job, health, a roof over my head, a church family, friendships, finances, safety and protection. I trust him in these areas because in the Bible we are told not to worry about these things because God will provide. It isn’t until something doesn’t match up in my timeline that I start to doubt that God really does have plans for me. This is when I put stipulations on my prayers; maybe I think that I can somehow show God how much I want something, how quickly I want it, and the specifics about what I want as if God was a Santa Clause and I a child afraid that I will be given the wrong gift if I am not specific about what it is I want. How silly I must look to the God who created me and sustains me when I pray these silly prayers out of a lack of faith and a doubting spirit. This is just a reminder to trust everything to the one who provides everything. Man is limited, but God is limitless.