Trusting

I love Fabs Harford's blog.  If you haven't ever read her stuff, do it today, you will love her honesty..She seems to say what I know we are all thinking.  I loved her recent article.

She talked about how she thought she "let go of" a situation and gave it to God because she quit wanting it so much, quit praying so desperately.  Essentially, she convinced herself that she didn't want what she wanted....

The she said,

I think one of the truths I’m learning through all this is that trusting God doesn’t mean you don’t hurt.  On the contrary, I think trusting God means you are not afraid to hurt.  I think trusting God means you can beg boldly with all the emotion in your heart without holding anything back.


You can tell if something is an idol when you pray for it with ultimatums and anger.  You can also tell if something is an idol when you don’t pray for it with all the emotion you feel.  You hold hopes unspoken in your heart in the name of ‘faith’ out of a desire to protect yourself from disappointment.  I couldn’t pray boldly because I didn’t want to get my hopes up.  I would be too devastated if God failed me

In reality, she had held on to that desire and was convinced God could do nothing about it.  She refused to bring her heart and all of its hurts and longings before the God who made it. When she was finally honest and came before God with her real prayers and real desires, she said...

There are no corners left for me to govern.  I can’t manage my expectations.  I can’t try to get ahead of whatever might be round the corner.  Trusting God means walking through pain and emotion without fear.

This article is so true of most people in so many stages of life. We alternate between extreme hope that God will answer yes, and he better do it or else...or we decide that if we really trust God, we will quit asking, quit praying, just take whats given, refusing to beleive He can change our circumstances and answer our prayers. Both are wrong. We should be somewhere in the middle, honest, vulnerable even pathetically hopeful with our desires, lying them before the feet of the only one who can answer....yet choosing to worship Him whether that answer be Yes or No.

I jump from one extreme to the other, but rarely am at the middle ground. Today, I pray I trust God enough to surrender, yet enough to hope. Both are essential parts of faith in Him and His provision. And, yes, trusting may mean hurting- longing - waiting, but if you trust God, you trust that He knows how to answer and that laying your heart before him will not be in vain.  Do you trust God in the hurt? Do you trust God enough to hurt?