Life Jackets

Turns out I have trust issues.

The past couple weeks have been really rough. Between school, moving, stress, people, my health, and about a billion other things I've felt so weighed down and disconnected from God. The frustrating thing is that I know the truth. I know he never leaves me, and I know that even when I can't feel him he's always there. Unfortunately knowledge doesn't always generate feeling. I'd been crying out to God for almost 2 weeks and hearing nothing in return. Yesterday I reached my breaking point. It was more than I could handle and I was ready to give up. I had a million questions that weren't getting answered.

But this morning I finally heard his voice. His sweet, loving, gentle voice. All he said was, "Just trust me."

It was all I needed to hear.

I have this horrible tendency to try to control everything in order to make it work out the way I think it's supposed to. Especially when things get hard, all I can think about is what I need to do to keep it together. Sometimes it gets to the point where the idea of trusting God is the furthest thing from my mind. And when trusting God is difficult, trusting people is even harder. So it typically ends up being this huge, terrible downward spiral and any sense of trust in God takes a backseat to fear and emotion.

But he knows me.
"O Lord, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O Lord. You hem me in -- behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me." - Psalm 139:1-5

He loves me.
"And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." - Ephesians 3:17-19

I am precious to him.
"The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing." - Zephaniah 3:17

And he promises to take care of me.
"The Lord will surely comfort Zion and will look with compassion on all her ruins; he will make her deserts like Eden, her wastelands like the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness will be found in her, thanksgiving and the sound of singing." - Isaiah 51:3-5

"I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; and make rough places smooth. These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them." - Isaiah 42:16

I believe that he has me exactly where I am for a reason. I don't know what that reason is, but I don't have to. I continue to prove to myself over and over again that I can't do this on my own. It starts to feel like perpetual failure, but that's what makes me human and what makes Him God. I can't do this on my own. I sort of picture it like swimming in the middle of the ocean all by myself. It's overwhelming and pretty much terrifying. I'm kicking and flailing and doing everything in my power to keep my head above the water, when all of a sudden I remember that I've had my life jacket on all along and there was never any reason to panic. I don't have to try to save myself. All I need to do is relax enough to let him hold me up.

"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight." - Proverbs 3:5-6