By So, I am doing this Beth Moore Bible Study on the book of Deuteronomy with some ladies in my church this summer. And this week, she posed a question, what would it take for you to really trust someone? She asked on a scale of 1- 10 how trusting are you, 1 being trusting to everyone and 10 being trusting no one or very very few. Now I am sure that some of the ladies in the room with me had much lower numbers than me but my first thought when she asked was I am a 10. Then I thought well, maybe a 9.5 as if that really made a difference. Throughout the study she talked about how this intersects with our relationship with God and how the question needs to be what would it take for you to really trust God and really give your whole heart to Him.
I don’t know about you, but I know that my trust threshold for people… and it is not likely that someone is going to be trusted completely. Part of this comes from my work over the years, I have spent years working with people that lie to me to try and save themselves, so I am not a very trusting person. Now I should point out that I can typically detect a lie, even a pretty good one pretty quick, but even if they are being truthful, I proceed with caution. Unfortunately this just does not apply to working with people, this spills over into my personal life, and most of my friends only get so much trust. I am not one to trust easily or completely. I have that lingering thought in the back of my mind, questioning is that really the truth, can I really trust that you are going to do what you say. Any of you out there? Who do you trust completely? Is your mind drawing a blank? Its ok, I know how you feel.
Now comes the hard part, what does trust look like in our relationship with God? Do you trust Him completely or does it look more like your relationship with people? I know that for me, it looks a lot more like that of my relationship with people. So as I was thinking, processing and praying, I called it what it is. I don’t trust God completely but I am moving towards trusting Him more. There is a song called Reflections of You where she says “All along I built these walls, Now I’m gonna let them fall.” I had that line going through my head over and over but I also saw something. The walls I have spent a lifetime putting up, taking down, putting up, taking down (you know the cycle, trying to trust then you get hurt so your rebuild the wall to protect yourself) are numerous and they need fall one at a time, or I am going to be more likely to rebuild them all very quickly the first sign of danger. Some of us have built walls to keep people out, out of brick and others of us have used brick, then reinforced it with steel and made it several feet thick (ok, so maybe I’m the only one that over does things). Those walls take time, and effort to take down. For me, I know there have been seasons where I have built walls around me several walls deep and I kept God at a distance because trust was too scary and I did not want to go there. Funny thing is, that while I tried to keep God at a distance I know that the Bible says that He is always there.
I can never escape from your Spirit!
I can never get away from your presence!
If I go up to heaven, you are there;
if I go down to the grave,[a] you are there.
If I ride the wings of the morning,
if I dwell by the farthest oceans,
even there your hand will guide me,
and your strength will support me.
I could ask the darkness to hide me
and the light around me to become night—
but even in darkness I cannot hide from you.
To you the night shines as bright as day.
Darkness and light are the same to you.Psalm 139:7-12
My walls are not going to keep God out but they will keep me from God. This morning as I was praying about this, the Lord spoke to my heart and told me, its ok, just keep moving closer. He knows my heart, He knows the wounds that need to be healed and He knows that I am cautious naturally and He still calls to me, and draws me to Him. So now, its time to trust God more. Maybe people might get included in that, actually I am sure that as I begin to trust God more, it will spill over to people. I guess my journey to being known has a new part added right?
Love this!!