ChristMyLife.org - Deeper Trust

I suppose you can call this the next phase of the "On Your Mind" email. You will notice the title change to include "Heart". While "thinking" is still a big part of my walk with the Lord, I see more of a focus of the heart as I have grown to trust Him more deeply in just the past few weeks.

There is much to share with you and I will try to make sense of it all. As I have already said, I now have a significantly deeper trust in the Lord. Related to this newfound trust, I have a contentment and peace I have never known before. It makes perfect sense that peace and contentment follow as we trust our wonderful God more and more.

Where did this deeper trust come from? How did this occur in my life? The Holy Spirit is the One who works in our hearts, but I will try to explain how the change took place as far as I understand.

An essential perquisite, at least for me, is a strong, understanding of who God is and a firm belief in His fundamental goodness. I don't mean a deep theological understanding so much, but more of an unhindered and wide open sense of His greatness, love, glory, grandeur, holiness, righteousness, power and wisdom. I see many believers who appear to have a very basic view of God and haven't grasped how awesome and glorious He is. God is important to them, but they haven't allowed their hearts to be filled with His wonder and glory. God must be everything and nothing should matter. As we consider God and His greatness, we must be captivated and filled with awe. As we truly know Him more and more, such will be our response.

I have been captivated by God in a new way since July of 2000. This is where the Holy Spirit opened my eyes to the truth that our awesome God is worthy of all worship and praise every moment of our lives. I speak about this in my testimony. This understanding resulted in a deeper walk with the Lord for me. I had much more of a focus on Him than I ever had in my life. What I saw, though, and have struggled with ever since, is how difficult it was to keep my mind focused on Him. I knew He was worth of all praise and worship all the time, but I found myself often distracted by life in general. I was much closer to the Lord during this time than I had ever been before in my life, but I still was not satisfied and I often struggled with my thoughts, concerns and worries.

I see also how I struggled with contentment and peace. I had grown tremendously in these areas, but I still had struggles. I can recall times where I would imagine what it might be like to work in an easier job, for example. I wasn't content where I was at and it gave me some fleeting satisfaction to consider a change in circumstances. Other times I would find myself looking forward to different future events (e.g., weekends, holidays) as a way to make myself feel better when my situation or circumstances were not to my liking. My life has been quite easy, but I am not easy to please. I would be content at times, but at other times I would wish for better circumstances. I wasn't really completely content. The only contentment I could really see required a change in my circumstances.

Another way this lack of contentment manifested itself was how I viewed my church. I had an idea in my mind how God might work a great renewal as I might have heard or read happen at some other well known church. I knew there had to be more and I had a picture in my mind of what it would look like. As things continued without any change (which I wanted to see), I felt some disappointment. It was like the picture in my mind of what things should be didn't match my experience. I love and enjoy my church, but as I look back I can see I was looking for improvement or change in circumstances at my church to bring satisfaction and contentment to me personally.

Related to my lack of contentment, I would think really hard and try to figure things out. That is part of all that I wrote over the past year with "On Your Mind". All these thoughts about our spiritual walk would fill my mind and help me grow so I would share them with others via email. That was and still is of value to me, but I always remember thinking how I didn't necessarily feel as close to the Lord in those times as I thought I should. There seems to have been much up and down in my life. It's not like wide ranging highs and lows, but I new God intended me to have a much more steady course than I was experiencing. What I wrote of made a difference in my life, but it didn't "work" as good as I knew it could. I always knew there was more, but I couldn't grasp it. I would try to keep my mind focused on Him, but it didn't happen consistently. I was much improved over my life before, but most of my thoughts and time in my life was in my own thoughts. God was always there, but often it seemed like He was more in the background, sometimes further in the background.

Looking back now I see how I was living my life largely in my own way and trying to add a focus on God to my life. I wanted to do things mostly my way and have a close relationship with God as well. I wasn't trying to be selfish or worldly. I was "doing the right things", but I was mostly doing and thinking what I wanted, even concerning spiritual things. I did focus on God more and did experience a deeper worship and relationship with Him, but much of my thinking and living remained my own. Being an engineer, I would say 10% of the time my thinking was in conversation with or focus on God. This was a vast improvement over my previous spiritual walk prior to July of 2000 where it was probably more like 1 or 2%, but it wasn't what I knew it could be. I was powerless to change it and life just kept marching on.

The big change for me occurred when I finally "decided" to trust Him completely (or at least as completely as I can). I have always known and written about how He is so, so good and worthy of all our devotion and praise. God is so completely and wonderfully good. What I finally did was surrender to Him in complete trust. He is good and perfect in every way. He knows and controls all things. What is there for me to concern myself with? How can I not trust Him far above myself? He is so much better than I could ever conceive to be. In Him and Him alone is complete contentment. There is no event, happening or person who could give me peace and contentment. It comes from Him alone. I don't concern myself with any future event or occurrence. I simply remain faithful to Him. If I am failing in some way, He will show me through His word and other ways what to change. If other believers do or don't follow Him as they should (or in my limited understanding how I think they should), that is not my concern. I will be faithful to encourage and admonish others as He leads, but it is God and God alone who works in people's hearts.

Looking back, one of the things which appeared to be a turning point for me was a decision one morning, on my 30 minute commute to work, to worship and focus on Him alone. I just worshipped Him and recognized all that He is for me. He is my Father, Savior, Creator and Protector. He knows all things, both the future and the past. He loves me to no end and gave His life for me. He cares for me in an incredible way. He is my everything. I just bathed my heart and mind in the incredible truth of who He is. There was nothing else I concerned my heart with. I made the choice to give that 30 minutes of time completely over to Him. It seemed that after I had done this, not that what I did was "magic", my heart became more receptive to trusting Him more. I have had times of worship like this in the past, I think, but this time it seemed to stick. This time I just rested in Him.

One of the simple things of life will help illustrate the change. Do any of you ever become frustrated with stop lights when you are driving? My drive to work has many stop lights, although it is on an expressway so many of them are green. I have always been a pretty mellow driver, but I will admit that I would become a little anxious, particularly when I just miss a green light. It's like there would be a little bit of disappointment. I would tell myself that it wasn't a big deal, but I wasn't completely content when I missed a green light and had to wait a while at a red light. Since I have become content in Him more, I have no concern whatsoever in my mind about the condition of the stop lights. I am delighted in Him and have an abiding confidence that He is in control of all things. I am content in my circumstances. I know this is quite a small thing, but it is one illustration concerning the change in my heart. Certainly, if we cannot be content in the smallest things, we will probably struggle with the big things.

Another way I see the change to a deeper trust in Him is how I view the future. I used to always plan or think through in my mind how things should work out. I had a picture in my mind of success. If I looked at my circumstances and I couldn't picture success, I became worried or concerned. To feel good about myself and my life, I needed to have a "good" picture of the future in my mind. This habit had the effect of both distracting me from a focus on God as well as giving me things to be concerned about. Now, I don't even give a thought about these things. I still plan ahead as needed, but nothing needs to go a particular way. My only "concern" is a trust in the Lord. I rest in Him. He is better than any future I could ever plan or conceive. I don't need to figure things out. I can trust Him fully.

As I rest in Him, my mind and heart are focused on Him and a profound new way. Because I trust Him completely (as best I can), I am in continuous conversation with Him. As I trust Him more fully, my heart and mind naturally focuses on Him. It seems so much easier to abide in Him. It seems like this is the only way to live. I am not anxious about anything. The Creator of the Universe is in complete control of all things. What do I need to worry about? I am no longer trying to add thoughts about God to my own agenda. My agenda is simply one item: God. There is nothing I need to accomplish nor is anything I need to regret.

Praise God, I feel so free. I am just learning and exploring this changed perspective on life. It is so different and so much better to trust Him more.

November, 2003

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