Trusting God is Not Comfortable!

Last week I announced a way to let your voice be heard in the year 2021. Click here to read the blog with the information.

That’s right, I’m sharing my space again–but this time only once a month, unless I have an overwhelming response. The deadline for February’s submission is February 3rd. If you have a God Story to share, please send an email to julie@ageeweb.com and I will send you the guidelines for participating.

I’m excited to share January’s Guest Blogger: Mrs. Chrissy Ballard. Chrissy’s husband, Matt, and I were friends in college. Chrissy is a beautiful woman on the inside (and outside) who loves Jesus and her family. She is a breast cancer survivor and understands the incredible ups and downs of a physical, mental, and spiritual battle with cancer and holding firm to her trust in God.

Here is her God Story . . .

The weakness of your faith will not destroy you. A trembling hand may receive a golden gift. -Charles Spurgeon

“They who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength they will mount up on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not be faint.” Isaiah 40:31

If cancer taught me anything, it taught me that trusting God is not comfortable. That may sound obvious, but sometimes we can think that living by faith is this whimsical experience where we triumphantly march forward without doubt, pain, or discouragement. That is not the Biblical example we see. Trusting God, or, as Isaiah put it, “Waiting for the Lord”, doesn’t belong in a Hallmark card picture — a colorful valley, a quaint village, a church steeple, with a sentimental slogan.

Trusting God can feel more like a violent battlefield. It can be extremely uncomfortable, even painful.

Rabbi David Kimchi, one of the early Hebrew lexicographers, defined the verb “wait” in Isaiah 40:31 with reference to the medieval German verb for “twist.” That is, waiting on the Lord can involve tension and pressure and stress. How could it be otherwise? Waiting is pent-up irresolution. It is not easy to wait trustingly for the Lord.

King David wrote about living by faith in this way: “I stretch out my hands to you; my soul thirsts for you like a parched land.” -Ps. 143:6

My point is this. You may be going through hell right now. You may strain the eyes of your soul to see through this dark night. You may feel so alone and powerless. You may be bewildered, gasping, frightened. But that doesn’t mean you aren’t trusting God. It might mean you are trusting God.

Isaiah really understood something. He understood that it’s IN this tension that our strength is renewed.

How so? There is something about coming to the end of ourselves and our own strength and wisdom — that’s when our hearts finally crack open, and the love of God pours in. When we have nothing of our own left, when nothing will suffice but that which is directly and immediately of God, that’s when God alone is our sufficiency, and we find him to be so. Then we can “walk humbly with our God” -Micah 6:8.

Sometimes our struggle to trust God can seem like anything but “soaring on wings like eagles.” That’s ok. Here’s something that our eyes often miss because we don’t understand the Hebrew writing style. In Hebrew literature, when there are multiple things talked about, the most important one is always last. So when we read Isaiah 40:31, we start with the “wings like eagles”. . . and that’s what we think is the main point.

That’s not it.

The point is the walking. Simple walking. One foot in front of the other. That’s it.

Occasionally we fly. Occasionally we run.

God just wants us to walk. Take the next step. Lean on the next promises. Breathe the next breath. Don’t waste your time trying to be heroic. Just keep moving forward. Intimacy with Him is infinitely worth the pain of “the wait”.

Chrissy