GRACE ANCHORED JOURNEY

Trusting God is a choice based on who He is, not our feeling or circumstance.

As I wake up every day, a lot of thoughts confront me – will I still be healed? Will the Lord provide for me? Is my family okay? Is God still providing for them? Where would I be this time next year? Will I still be alive?

Just when I believe that the Lord will heal me and that He is always able to replace whatever I have lost, moments after, my heart begins to feel otherwise. Then, hopelessness and fears suddenly (and other emotions) creep in. This is my daily pattern as I struggle to keep myself stay in the will and presence of God. My journals are full of verses and notes about remaining strong in the Lord. It has been almost a year living in this situation. Impatience always comes around.

Whenever I start to listen to those voices inside, my emotions start to control me. Uneasiness and doubts surely appear as if they are tempting me to just work things on my own and never to trust God.

These past months, the book of Psalms has been my companion in my daily devotions. And, it brings me closer to the life of David and how his trust and confidence are found in the Lord. No wonder he is the “man after God’s own heart.” I thank the Lord for this book. It greatly pulls me back when my faith starts to waver. One of my favorites is Psalm 31. Like David, the Lord wants me to trust Him and rest in the assurance that He is the God who controls everything. He knows what is going on in my life and He is with me.

“But I trusted in thee, O lord: I said, Thou art my God.” (Psalm 31:14)

David was in great distress because of his enemies when he wrote this. I felt his fear and worry, but he chose to cast these fears and worries to the Lord who is able to defend Him mightily against his enemies. David knew the Lord well that regardless of how he felt at that moment, he was secured and safe in the presence of God. Nonetheless, he still cried out to God and lamented about his situation. It was like David was saying, “Lord, I greatly fear because of my enemies. They can kill me anytime. BUT you are greater than my fears and enemies and I chose to trust in You.”

He started his prayer by saying how he first and foremost, trusted the Lord and asked for deliverance (Psalm 31:1). Amidst of the uncertainties that his enemies brought about, he anchored his thought on who God is and not on his situation (Psalm 31:3)

Unlike David where his closeness to God always brings him to his knees before Him, I on the other side, always find myself in failure of acknowledging who God is because of my situation or emotion.

What can we learn then from David’s life as manifested in the book of Psalms?

• that we must trust the Lord even though we don’t know the future

• that our life is in His mighty hands

• that we can always pour out our hearts to the Lord and He listens

• that we can be glad amidst the darkness that we see if we put our trust in the Light

Human as we still are, I believe that it is inevitable for us to feel these unnecessary emotions of sadness, joy, anger, bitterness, worries, fears, depression, discouragements, hopelessness, and anxiety. With all these things, we have two options: to let them pull us into the mud of self-pity and chaos or cast them all to the Lord for He cares (1 Peter 5:7).

Trusting the Lord is a choice that we consciously make as believe in the truth that He is the omnipotent and omnipresent God

These emotions bring us down because we make ourselves be controlled by them instead of trusting God. Women, we know how emotional we are. And, we have this tendency to cling around these emotions that can cause us to see our problems bigger than God.

I know that these emotions are given by God, but we must know how to steward them appropriately. Emotions can be good so long as we have control over them and not the other way around. God gave them to us anyway, and He also has control over them if we let His Words rule us.

A lot of times, I don’t feel like trusting the Lord because I don’t see Him answering my prayers. But those times that I doubt, He is always making things that will make me see His mighty hands.

So now, whenever I feel that I am tempted to doubt God, I make a conscious effort to draw myself to the Word of God and encourage myself to trust Him because He knows my future. He, too holds my life (Psalm 31:15).

How about you? Will you choose to trust God based on who He is or continue to be controlled by your emotions and situations that will lead you to live a defeated life? The choice is always yours.