Lately, I’ve been studying the topic of trust. And I’ve realized I attach a great deal of my trust in God to my desire for things to turn out like I think they should.
I want the goodness of God to compel Him to fix things, change minds, prevent hurt, punish the bad and vindicate the good on my timeline. I’m desperate for God to make circumstances good in the timing that seems good to me.
But that’s not faith. It’s a sign that because I still don’t understand what God allowed to happen in my past, I’m struggling to trust Him with my future. So I’ve started asking myself: Can I trust Him enough to start surrendering the outcomes of how my life will go?
“Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight” (Proverbs 3:5-6).
I know these verses, but I want to live these verses. And to do that, I must acknowledge that God’s version of making my path straight most likely will not line up with what I expect.
Can I make peace with the fact that my definition of a straight path is limited by my human thinking and emotion? Can I find my security in the unlimited, all-knowing power of God?
Friend, as we sit with all of this, I’m reminded of a big, uprooted oak tree I once saw after some bad weather. It was a stately tree that was once incredibly stable. I just had to know: What happened?
So I asked someone on a crew that was removing the fallen tree. He said, “Shallow roots and ants.”
He explained that sometimes big trees in yards with sprinkler systems get so easily satisfied by the water from the surface that the roots don’t need to grow deep. The trees can look strong, but shallow roots make them less stable and way more vulnerable in storms and strong winds.
And ants can play a big part in a tree falling as well. They target where some sort of injury has occurred and moisture has started to weaken the wood. Taking full advantage of the softer wood, they wear away at it, eventually even damaging the sound wood and making the tree hollow inside, even though it may look solid from the outside. The hollower the tree becomes, the more it will lose structural strength.
I am a lot like that tree. When life looks like I expect it to and feels relatively good, I am tempted to get satisfied with where I’m at and not grow deeper roots of faith. I may sprinkle in some sermons and podcasts, but I’m not digging into God’s Word and going deeper in my application. Or like the ants hollowing out the tree, I slowly, daily, make one compromise after another, trusting God less and less.
But instead of trying to control things beyond my control, I want to choose to surrender them today to God. And then surrender again tomorrow. And the next day too. Refusing to control is an act of building more and more trust in God.
Each time I have doubts and fears about God’s goodness, I will bring these to God and let His Truth refute them. My job is daily obedience to God. His job is holding and handling my future.
Today, let’s remember this truth: Trusting God means holding loosely the parts of my life I want to hold most tightly. Is it easy? No. But is it the pathway to the peace I long for? Yes, it is.
Father God, I want to be a woman with deep roots. A woman firmly anchored to Your Truth and filled by Your Spirit. I confess today how much I need Your help in resisting control, letting You lead me and learning to trust You. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
