kickball

This past week our community of faith had a very interesting conversation. It revolved around the idea that God is good and knows better than we do. The dialogue was interesting (and frustrating) because we all know the right answers, but struggle to apply them.

See, we know that God knows better, but we try our own ideas out anyway. We know the Bible is right, but we ignore it anyway. We know God loves us, but our feelings tell us something different. We know that even the difficult, trying times are ultimately for our good, but, especially in the midst of them, we forget. Oh, how easily and quickly we forget.

If I’m being really honest, I’m pretty shocked at myself. I’ve been a Christian my whole life and have been in church ministry for more than a decade. My Dad is a pastor too, which means I quite literally grew up in church and, yet, I can’t seem to get this thing down. I wrestle with this issue constantly and often find myself wondering what it’s going to take for me to finally get it.

God is bigger than us, stronger than us, wiser than us…on and on and on we could go. So, if those things are true, why do we fight Him so much?! Why is it so hard to trust Him in every situation whether good or bad, happy or sad? At least in part, I think it’s because of our human perspective. Like a child who fusses over not getting a toy, so we fuss over our situations and circumstances. Scripture is clear, though, that we’ll never fully understand God…in this life, at least. His thoughts and ways are higher than ours (read Isaiah 55:6-9). That’s a humbling, but very accurate statement. We only see things from our small, mortal, flawed, human perspective. God, on the other hand, sees all of time and space in one glance.

So, maybe the question, then, is this: what does trust in God look like? How does it play out in our daily lives? What does it mean to trust God in every situation and circumstance? Boy, that gets down to the nitty gritty of life, doesn’t it? We can trust Him with our children and spouse. We can trust His plan for our job and career. We can trust His leadership in our love life and educational path. We can trust Him with our money and our friendships. We can trust Him because, well, He is good.

We do not know best. We often think we do, but we don’t. He does. May we all learn to trust Him instead of ourselves. May we know, truly know in our hearts, that God is good all the time and that all the time God is good.

Thank you, Rob Bell and the Nooma team for a fantastic resource!