“Can you imagine how much less anxiety, fear, angst, and heartbreak we would have if we could truly trust in God? I don’t mean just saying we trust God because it’s the Christian thing to say. . . . I mean having a marked moment. A real live moment we can point to and remind ourselves that we declared we will trust God with this suffering. With this disappointment. With this situation.”- Lysa TerKeurst
“Even though Jesus was God’s Son, he learned obedience from the things he suffered.”- Hebrews 5:8 (NIV)
As Lysa TerKeurst continues Chapter 3 of It’s Not Supposed to Be This Way, she asks her readers to not rush past the heart-stopping truth of Hebrews 5:8. Jesus learned obedience from what He suffered. In turn, the suffering Jesus learned from obedience compelled Him to trust God beyond what He could see with His physical eyes.
Hence, Ms. TerKeurst defines obedience as the daily practice of trusting God. Furthermore, Lysa stresses, there’s only one way to gain this kind of trust in God. We must survive and thrive through the things we suffer in this life between the two gardens.
Yet, the author observes, God doesn’t want us to suffer. But, He’ll allow suffering in small doses to increase our trust. Rather than hurting us, our suffering saves us from a self-reliant, self-satisfied, and self-absorbed life. Because that kind of life sets us up for the greatest separation of all – separation from God.
However, Ms. TerKeurst admits, none of this changes the fact that we want all of this to go away. We desire a happy, normal, easy life. For with our limited knowledge, that’s the only way we conceive how a good plan should play out. But only God knows the identity of that good plan as well as wheat it will take to get you there.
Today’s question: What Scriptures help you define a marked moment of trust in God’s story for your life? Please share.
Tomorrow’s blog: “The tree of life in it’s wintertime”
