Trusting God while we are afraid of what is going to come next in our lives, afraid of what might happen, is a difficult thing to do.  How do we manage to overcome fear in a very real trial, a very real dilemma, a very real situation?  Is it possible to trust God when we don’t know what might happen in the next month, week, day, hour, or even minute?  In yesterdays post we discovered that God knew what was coming next, even when we did not.  He is aware of what is going to happen even when we plan for something completely different in our lives.  So how about when the possibilities are scary?  Scary situations in our lives do not change God, often however it changes our response to God.

God does not change, His attributes do not change, and His promises do not change (Mal. 3:6 , Jas. 1:17 ).  When we are in a situation that is outside of our plan, different then we expected, we react.  That reaction is going to effect every area of our life including our relationship with God.  There is no way to avoid our human reaction, no way to to turn off our human emotions and feelings to what is going on in our life.  How we deal with God while we are having that reaction is going to determine whether the trial strengthens our relationship with the Lord or scars our spirit, making it difficult to heal in the end.

The initial reaction is often fear.  Fear of the unknown, the known, the news, how we’ll handle it, how others will react to the news, how we will get through it.  Then come the mights, the maybes, the what ifs.  We began dwelling on the things we don’t even know about yet.  As humans we start to wonder about all the unknowns.  That is our very nature because we want to control what we can’t control.  If we trust that God knows what is happening next and he intends it for our benefit, fearing the unknown and the mights the maybes and the what ifs moves our focus to the wrong place.

Psalms 56:3-4 says "When I am afraid, I will trust in you.  In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I will not be afraid.  What can mortal man do to me?" (NIV)

We need to be sure we are praising God because we trust Him despite our situation, the fear we feel is not where our trust comes from.  Our trust comes from the knowledge that God is the same despite our situation (Heb 13:8 ), that He is trustworthy (Psalm 33:21 , 2 Sam 7:28 ), and that He is with us (Deut 31:6 , Deut 31:8 , Josh 1:5 ).  Our fear does not change those facts.  We need to base our trust on that solid foundation which we can prove to ourselves every day despite the changing conditions we are enduring.

Might, maybe, and what if is not very mighty and God is a mighty God.  I don’t find much strength in dwelling on what might happen next.  As a matter of fact it swells the fear.  What I have discovered is that if I spend time with God, in His word, and in prayer asking Him to mold me while we lay on His anvil into who He wants me to be in the trial, I am able to withstand the trial easier.  Why is this?  Because the more time we spend focused on God, where we should be, the less time we have to dwell on our temporary circumstance.  After all our focus doesn’t belong on our temporary situation.  That emmediate reaction of fear is normal, but to rely on that reaction as our means of determining how much we trust God is not how we should run our relationship with Chirst.  Our relationship with God should be determined by what we know to be true.  And those facts do not change based on our temporary circumstance and our emotional reaction.   God is going to use the Anvil to mold us and help us see His purpose in the trial if we trust Him to do so despite the fear, and He will take that fear away as we trust Him to use the circumstance towards His purpose in our lives.

As humans we always want to plan, we want to have it all together, we want to say our future is all tucked in and ready to go.  We make plans, we chart our course, we put away money, we have short term and long term goals, calendars, and all kinds of reminder systems.  Then something comes along to change that.  What? This could be a small bump in the path or a long detour in the roadway.  Somehow we always react with “That wasn’t in the plan”.  God always knew it was coming.  It is no surprise to God that something different happened then what we expected.  Now He is about to use this detour, or bump, to shape us into the person He wants us to be.

God was fully aware of what was about to come in our life, and He intends it for our good and to prosper us.  Jeremiah 29:11 makes that very promise to us.  “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’” (Jer. 29:11 NIV)  God not only knew what was coming (Job 23:10), He is going to use it for our benefit.  That benefit may not always be the easiest to see in the midst the circumstance, as a matter of fact I will admit it is often impossible to see, but it is there.  God promised us the benefit is there.  I trust His promises.

In the midst of the trial, the bump, the detour in our plan, we need to be looking to what God is doing.  Knowing that He has made a promise to prosper us and give us a hope and a future, to mold us and refine us, allows us to focus on Him rather then the circumstance.  Though that benefit may not be immediately obvious to our human eyes, we can ask the Lord to help us focus on His work in us, rather than the temporary situation around us.  He knew the bump, the detour, the change in plans was coming, so we can trust that He is going to fulfill His promise once again, as He always has.