In times of struggle, in the times when things get tough most advice given to us is “trust in God”. These words seem so simple and easy yet it can be the hardest thing to do. There are many times when I have overlooked my trust in God and had trust in my own abilities and strength rather than God’s and surprisingly enough, I was wrong. Trusting in God isn’t a “one time thing” or a” when we want him for something we will trust” but a day to day, 24 hour must.
The times that we don’t trust in God are when we are feeling anxious and don’t give God our worries, when we want to be control and won’t allow God to take the lead and when we suffer we find it hard to go to a God when we are in pain. So how can we trust in God? Well in proverbs 3:5 it says that we should trust in the Lord with all our heart and not to lean on what we know. We shouldn’t trust in ourselves or experiences in the past but trust in God who knows the next step. The best illustration is when we find times in life where we are walking down a path but can’t see round the bend, we don’t know what is going to happen next. Instead of giving our worries to God and taking control we can’t get round the bend. But when we give the worries to God he lays our path out straight in front of us and the bend is no longer there. We trust in God because we know that he knows the path that is laid before us.
Sometimes there are paths that seem impossible to go down, when someone in the family is sick or feelings of anxiety and depression overwhelm you. It’s easy not to admit we have a problem but that leads us to pride. We are too proud to admit that there is a problem and that we need God.
Philippians 4:13 says “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me”. We need to learn that we can’t do things in our own strength but we can do though Christ’s strength. Philippians 4:5-6 tells us that “The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God”. God is longing for us to talk to him, he is longing for us to give us our battles. He already knows what is in our hearts; he knows the struggles that we will face so we need to turn to him. God will free us from fear, anxieties, and worries if we just trust in him.
The hardest time to trust in God is when something is happening to us that we can’t control and have no understanding as to why it is happening. When negative emotions take over, when past experiences catch up with us, when past emotions keep being brought up... where is our trust in him then? Remembering that we are living in a spiritual battle and this is a battle. When we are weak the Devil loves to try and get in and put a foothold over us, weather that is anxiety, fear, insecurities or anything. When the Devil does we feel more negative and insecure and forget to pray, we forget to ask God for help and try to fix the problem ourselves. Going to God and admitting we need help is hard but is humble. We know we can’t do things in our own strength and we know that God is in control, so why don’t we let him in?
Even though we can pray and give our worries to God, it may not mean that later these worries and struggles won’t appear again. It’s important that we learn to work through these worries, having a discipler can help go through these problems. When going through the steps to freedom on the “freedom in Christ” course, there was a chapter on anxiety. It is helpful to write down all the worries and feelings that you are going through at the moment. Then in the next column write down who is in control of these fears, worries or situations. Then finally write down what you have assumed, is it the worst case scenario and have you included God in it. I found that all of my worries were assumed and actually didn’t happen therefore I should have gone to God and not worried at all.
God is there and God is listening.
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