A bestselling author I was privileged to learn under at Mount Hermon a couple of years ago commented how many of her stories dealt with a theme that seemed to continually come up in her own life: God saying, “Are you going to trust Me?”
Sometimes, she said, she felt like responding, “Haven’t we been over this before?”
I could relate. I tend to think I should be able to learn the lesson of trust once, at most several times, and be done with it. I finally learn to leave things in God’s hands, trust Him with this thing, let go of this dream, and there, I’m done, I graduate, get my diploma, and it’s all downhill from there. Or at least, I move onto another lesson.
But then He brings it up again. Are you going to trust Me…with this?
Really, Lord?
I thought I didtrust You—I did lay my life in Your hands, I did say, “Not my will but Thine,” I did know that peace of surrender. I took that step of faith into the Jordan I thought You were asking me to take.
So why aren’t the waters parting?
A day or two after writing here about Martha, I came to her family again in reading of John’s gospel. How when her brother sickened, they sent, no doubt trusting and in faith, to Jesus to come. And how He…didn’t. Not at first.
Maybe I’ll try imagining that story sometime too.
It seems our God isn’t very big on the one-time, splashy, you’re-done-and-graduated obediences. He’s big on the step-by-step, day-by-day, I’ll-get-up-this-morning-and-trust-You-again-even-though-I-can’t-see obediences. Like Abraham and Sarah, keeping on hoping against hope for 25 years for God’s promise of a child.
“If anyone wishes to come after me,” Jesus said, “he must deny himself, and take up his cross dailyand follow me.” (Luke 9:23, emphasis mine.)
We can’t just take up our cross once and be done with it. It’d be easier if we could.
Each new step my family takes, each new show our theater company puts on, comes with its own set of challenges, no matter how many hurdles God has gotten us through before. Sometimes I think we should be “over this” by now, but each new season seems to come with new problems. New reasons we have to trust Him, have to press close and cling to Him if we’re going to make it through.
Maybe that’s one reason He allows all the “agains”? If things were all downhill from the mountaintop, would we forget how much we need Him?And maybe, also, some other “agains”:
“The Lord’s lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness.” ~Lamentations 3:22-23
“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” ~I John 1:9
“And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.” ~Romans 8:28
Mercies new every morning—again.
His forgiving me—again.
Bringing good out of heartache—again.
As we cling on and trust Him, again.
