There’s a verse that I memorized as a little girl that sticks with me still. “What time I am afraid, I will put my trust in Thee.” (Good old King James, it’s got to have the “thee” in it!)
A couple of weeks ago, that verse came back to me again. I was sitting in a waiting room, about to be called in to see the doctor to receive some test results. And I was scared.
See, I’m really good at worrying. I’ve been practicing my whole life. And getting test results is something that can freak me out. So as I was sitting there, nervous and scared, with that verse was stuck in my head. I tried repeating it to myself, hoping to get my mind in the right place, and trying to stop worrying.
But as I said, “…I will put my trust in Thee,” I suddenly realized that it was a lie. My trust was not in God as I was sitting there. There are lots of times when I don’t put my trust in God. There are terrible, hard things in this world that I am just plain scared of, and I can say that I trust God, but sometimes I don’t. I wouldn’t feel the way that I do sometimes, if I were actually trusting Him all the time.
So I sat there trying to figure out how to learn to trust God. How do you?
And then it hit me – the verse says, “I will put…” – not “I will magically discover that my trust is already put in Thee.”
I was feeling like a very bad Christian because I was not trusting God. But I suddenly realized that it’s a choice I need to make over and over again. With every situation that comes up, I need to once again say, “God, I will put my trust in you. I will choose to put it there.”
Beth Moore says that if you don’t feel something, live as though you are a woman who feels it, and the feelings will eventually catch up with the actions.
When I am worried or scared, I will choose to put my trust in God, even though it doesn’t want to be put there, and eventually, if Beth Moore is right, the feelings will follow. And if she’s wrong, it’s still a good idea, because I will be acting in obedience to God, even when my emotions haven’t quite caught on yet.
As I choose to act the way God wants me to, I will be growing my “trust muscle” – I’ll get better at putting my trust where I want it to be, rather than allowing my emotions too much control in my life.
What about you? Is there an area in your life where you’ve allowed your emotions to make decisions that they have no business making?
Ordinary Days 