And God Wanted More
I first shared this post (Original Title: Trust and Obey and . . . Trust) on January 6, 2013 and it is one of my most read blog posts.
As I face a year of change in 2017, this message resonates with me once more, reminding me that He meets me in the darkest place, asking me to trust Him when I am confused about the next step and His plans for me. In light of recent conversations with beloved friends, I know I am not the only one struggling to understand what it means to trust and obey and trust.
Trust and Obey and .....Trust
I think the hymn writer got it wrong. The title Trust and Obey really should read, Trust and Obey AND TRUST.
Because sometimes God calls us to impossible tasks and our obedience seems ludicrous. When our sixteen-year-old son was killed in a car accident, I knew God's expectations of me were impossible. I could not survive. I would not survive. I wasn't finished being Mark's mother. This was outrageous. I concluded that if I started screaming and refused to stop, someone would realize a terrible mistake had been made and give me back my son. I think that's called denial.
In the most impossible situation, God called me to trust AND OBEY. What did obedience look like for me? What did God require of me? Chuck told me that I must embrace sorrow as a friend. I could not. God called me to worship Him. I didn't know how. He demanded surrender. I would not. I wanted, I needed my child.
I heard that His promises are precious. I concluded they did not apply to me. Trust Him? My pathway was impossible.
Yet, I had other children and though they were young adults, I knew they needed me to find a way out of the darkness. I did not want their brother's death to destroy their trust in God, even though I wasn't sure I could trust Him again. In desperation I turned to the only place that I could trust to be unchanging. God's Word. I hooked myself up to the scriptures the way doctors and nurses hook us up to intravenous medication. The only pathway for survival was to constantly wash my soul in His Word, trusting it to be truth, though my heart cried out, "Untrue." But in spite of unrelenting pain in newly used spiritual muscles, His Word drew me back every day, every morning.
And still God wanted more.
He called me to trust.....AND OBEY.
And slowly, very, very slowly, I obeyed. The obedience was not dramatic. It was mundane but required every ounce of strength remaining in my broken heart. I obeyed when I got out of bed every morning instead of staying curled up in a ball, wrapped in Mark's robe, trusting that when He calls us, He also equips us to obey. But then what should I do now that I was up? Like the writer of Lamentations, I felt everything was vanity. And yet....
God's Word was a light for my pathway. Jeremiah 29 called me to
surrender to my captivity in the Land of Grief.
Not just give in and give up, but surrender with purpose and obedience and by choosing life and hope. Through this passage, God demanded that I plant gardens and allow those gardens to nurture me and my family. He called on me to love my family and to encourage them to trust His promises, to encourage them to build families, to give them in marriage and for them to bear children. Though I would always grieve, He wanted my life to empower our children and grandchildren to embrace joy and the possibilities of living with eternal purpose. If I surrendered to His specific instructions, our children would be nurtured by this obedience,
this Garden of Life in the Land of Grief.
And I obeyed, often failing in my battle to conquer every emotion that tied me tightly in the abyss of sorrow. I met with Him every morning and begged Him to heal my broken heart. First like a gentle Father, then at times like a stern parent, God whispered, then spoke, "Trust AND OBEY."
But He wanted more.
He wanted more than superficial obedience. He wanted my trust. Give up your agenda (getting Mark back) and
TRUST Me
to perform My purposes in your obedience.
Sometimes our obedience is a teeny, tiny step with tear-filled eyes
coupled with little hope that anything we are doing will lead to a good result.
Sometimes we think our obedience is about big things when God is really calling us to obey in the mundane, ordinary tasks of life.
Get out of bed. Prepare breakfast. Do a load of wash. Meet with Me. Weep. Ask others to pray. Go out with a friend. Let that friend love you. Tinysteps for a normal person, monumental for one broken by life.
In mercy, God handed me a basket of mysterious seeds with instructions to plant them, not knowing what fruit they would bear. Gardening requires hard work, consistent tending, regular oversight of tender seedlings, ruthless pruning and always weeding. I often faltered, failed, fell down again and again. Getting up impossible at times. Yet not once did I feel condemned, judged, less loved by our God. In those failures, Jesus, my Brother, the One Who experienced total sorrow, that Jesus met me and held me tightly in His grip, soothing me with hope and a call to trust Him with this journey. Some fruit takes a very long time to appear - a very long time.
Lasting Peace
I could not have chosen sweeter, more succulent produce than God is harvesting from our Garden of Life. Where once sorrowful tears reigned, unabated tears of joy stream down my cheeks. Laughter and silliness fills our home when our kids and grandchildren gather. This day I am overwhelmed with the miracle of welcoming our little granddaughter from India as our fourteenth grandchild.
God is keeping His promises of Psalm 30, a scripture I return to again and again, "...weeping may visit in your home for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning..."
In deep grief I cried out to my God, "Hear, O Lord, and be merciful to me; O Lord, be my help." And He turned my wailing into dancing; He removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, so that my heart sings to Him and I will not be silent. O Lord, my God, I will give you thanks forever. As continue in this journey called life, may every woman whose heart is breaking, take hope and trust and obey and trust.
In His grip,
Sharon