Trusting God

I have not always been a great Christian. I have not always had faith. I have not always trusted God. I have had my rebellious moments. I have had my rude moments. I have had my anger moments. I have said things that shouldn't have been said. I have done things that I shouldn't have done.

Something inside me has questioned over and over if I've gone too far, and if God could really use a woman like me. Deep inside, I know that God wants to be in my life and that He wants to use me. But then the human, doubting part of my mind, wonders why He'd even want to use a woman like me. But lately, as I've been thinking my life, and praying that God would help me serve Him in the way He wants, I've noticed several things.

God used David, who was an adulterer and murderer.
God used a prostitute.
God used a man with a speech impediment. 
God used Peter, a liar.

God can use anyone who wants to be used by Him. I mean, if He can use a donkey to speak to someone, then He can certainly use someone who is willing.

So as time has gone on, and I've thought about my past and who I used to be and the things I've done that I'm not proud of, I ask God how He can use my failures to bring glory to Him. I ask Him how I can minister to others through the things I've learned through my mistakes.

One of the big things that sticks out to me is how little I've trusted God, and because of my lack of faith, I've done things on my own to just "do" instead of asking Him what He wants of me.  An example that got me thinking about this was something that happened the other day. My 1 1/2 year old son ran out ahead of me while we were outside on our front porch area. I was running to catch up with him, trying to make it to him before he reached the stairs. But, he made it there before me. He took one "big boy step" down one step and then tumbled down the other six steps. As I ran up, he was tumbling down and every time he'd roll up, his beautiful brown eyes would look pleadingly at me, to make him stop. But there was nothing I could do to stop it. His choice to wrench his hand out of mine and run ahead of me caused him some pain. (He was not injured severely...just a couple of small bruises). It broke my heart to watch him fall and tumble. I tried to reach out to him, but was unable to do anything for him.

After that incident, I remember praying and asking God to make me a better mother. To help me raise my children for His glory and to know what to do for them. I remember the feeling of helplessness I had, and it caused me to stop and think about God and how He feels towards us.

It must hurt Him so much when He sees us wrench ourselves away from His loving grasp and run out ahead of Him. It must break His heart when we don't trust His guiding and helping hand. 

Then I thought about how much He must love us and want us to trust Him. I know the deep ache I had in my heart as my poor little son tumbled down those stairs. I wanted to protect him, to hug him, to hold him close and soothe the hurts he had and to wipe away his tears that coursed down his rugged cheeks. How much more so must God want to take care of us, to soothe our hearts and our troubled minds? How much more so must God want to hold us in His loving arms and wipe away our tears of frustration, doubt and fear?

His love for us is endless. His arms are always open wide to us, waiting for us to come to Him, to trust Him and to let Him guide us. When we allow ourselves to be free in Him, then we can trust whatever plan He has for us.  Sometimes His plan doesn't make sense. Sometimes, from our point of view, things are just going wrong and that He just doesn't care. So we get up in our minds and run off, trying to do things our own way, and in the process of doing that, we make a huge mess of things.  If we could see what He sees, I know we'd see a perfect plan all laid out, each puzzle piece having a perfect fit.  Sometimes He wants us to go through trials that we don't understand just so He can show us just how awesome and wonderful He is! He sometimes just wants to test us to see if we're going to trust Him in everything. Sometimes He will allow trials and tribulations to come into our lives to see how we're going to respond. And He does it all to show us that we CAN trust Him. And then, later on in our lives, as we come across more doubts and fears, we can remind ourselves of all the things God has brought us through already and then relax, knowing that a huge God, who really does care, is still caring and taking great care to make sure that we are protected.

God will never leave us, nor will He forsake us. Let us never forget that! And I pray that we will always trust Him with everything, because He really does know what is best...even if we can't see or understand why it is best. He sees the future and only He can see that, so we might as well trust Him with it!

Blessings~