Knowing or Trusting

Recently, I heard a pastor speak on “trusting” and “the need to know/understand”. I thought I would share some ideas that I received with you. Have you ever gotten caught up in the need to know all about some circumstance or event in your life? Maybe you feel like you need to know why, or it might be that you just that you feel you have the right to know. But God has other ways of working this out in us. Here are some thoughts and based on Philippians 4:7. Let’s open the door and walk through what can be the hardest step we take.

We may think we need to know based on intellectual reasoning and/or emotional satisfaction. We want an explanation. Or, we feel we are owed an explanation. You may feel like you don’t have an explanation for what you are going through, and for what you feel God is allowing in our life. Boy is that a tough one! And if someone says anything about the ideology that we can’t know the answers for everything we go through, we bristle like a porcupine! And…we get angry at God because we think He reveal to us what we want/need to know. We believe if we know it all, THEN we can understand it. There has to be a reason!! We just can’t align ourselves with what is going on in our life at that time. If we did know the reasons, could we understand and accept it? I think we still would not understand or accept it. It would fuel our emotions all over again.

Here is a hard hit: Either you want to know/understand, or you want to trust. Which is it? I have gone through many hard things, but what I have learned through them is that I need to trust God. Oh, I can still ask why, because we all have those times. Times when because we don’t get how this could happen, we CAN know that God has a plan that maybe we can’t see right now. We may even think that our life should always be explainable. If you are really listening to these ideas, you will know for sure that is not the case. Sometimes we won’t know for years why a circumstance has happened. Some of us, if we are willing to admit to it, may be even stomping our feet and shaking a fist at God in our anger thinking He should give us the answer.

So how might we overcome this need to know or understand? The answer first must be found in time alone with God; being in His presence. That means having a relationship with God where you have surrendered your life to Him. Ask Him what He is trying to teach you, or what this brings to your life that you may use to help others. How about asking Him to help you trust that even though you don’t like this happening in your life, that He would help you use it for Him. The need to know everything can easily create bondage and anger. That is when it goes sideways and you can find yourself walking away from God just because you don’t get it. I don’t believe we will ever get to the point where we understand how God works; we think we should but we won’t. Why? Because as humans, we allow our own emotions and feelings to be involved. Here the focus is on us and how we feel and what we have a right to know, we think. If we trust Him, we can re-decide whether or not God is faithful. I have decided God is faithful all the time, even IF I don’t understand what is going on all around me. Again, will I trust Him?

If we get stuck in the “need to know” stage, it can cause a us to blow up. It becomes about you and what is happening; and inner focus. It sets you up to lies from the devil and more questions. He loves it when you doubt. Our greatest danger is when we turn our minds over to self and don’t ask God for His help. It is all how about we think…every day. What can we do about it? We can say, “God I don’t know why this has happened, but I am going to trust you anyway, and every time I doubt, I am going to ask You again to help me trust You!” I choose to rest and trust. You see, our culture WANTS us to blame someone. If you are listening to news, everyone is blaming someone else. How about we own up? Can we do that? Yes we can if we are willing to challenge ourselves to see where God is working.

Another hit: Do you WANT to be free or not? What may be needed is repentance and asking God for revelation of the circumstance. Have you ever thought there comes a time when you have to be scared of yourself? Anger can put us in that corner, and instead of trusting, we can come out fighting. Let’s ask Him to help us see it. And…what about that waiting thing? Could we bow before Him and say, “I am going to wait until my change comes.” If you surrender to this previous statement, you will have your mind and heart tested. Trust me on that! But…I challenge you to try hard to quit trying to figure it all out.

Bottom line? We need the presence of God and we need to be IN the presence of God. He will help us through what ever it is we have gone though. You may be thinking, “You have no idea what I have or am going through. You don’t know what I have had happen to me!” Let me assure you, I have had this lesson come home to roost on needing to know. I now tell myself what I need to be doing rather than let misunderstanding, anger, or focusing be my way of dealing with it. I know that God can, and will, help me see it without anger and hurt and misunderstanding of Him. We always want to lay blame somewhere when bad things happen, and God gets the blame a lot. Give Him a chance to give you what you need to make it through. We will most likely never totally understand it this side of heaven. However, we can learn to trust Him with everything we’ve got until heaven reveals the answers to us.

Lord, I don’t need to know, I am choosing to trust You instead. I want to live free of thinking there is always a human answer. Sometimes we DO come to know part of the reason. But many times that hard “trust factor” has to come into play.

And, I do trust Him. I have lived long enough to know I can, but not long enough that I can’t be touched by a reminder to do so. I hope this post does that for you also.

Until next time…

~JoAnn