“Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep.” – Psalm 127:1-2
I’ll admit I am not always great at trusting in God. But my husband is very good at that; he never worries about anything! I’ve always found that amazing, because I can manage to worry about anything! But I’ve realized lately that worry is a sin. Worry is me saying, “God I don’t trust that You can handle this; I think I can do it better.” Which, that is, in fact, a lie. Because, as the psalmist says, even the watchman who is doing his job is working in vain, because unless the Lord watches over a city, it will not be protected. I’ve had to learn this hard lesson when it comes to my children. When I became a mom, I wanted desperately to keep them safe and to do everything right. But then I started to realize that even if I did EVERYTHING in my power to keep my kids safe, it doesn’t mean that bad things don’t still happen. And I began to realize that I have to release control of even the things I love the most to my Heavenly Father, who loves them SO much more, and is the only One who can actually bring protection.
This past year has been one of great joy, and with that, great difficulty. We have welcomed another daughter into our family, and she is such a joy! But we’ve also dealt with hardships, such as financial difficulties, mental health battles, parenting hardships, and discouraging health diagnoses in our family. And all these things seemed to happen back, to back, to back. I remember asking Daniel one night, “when is the hard stuff going to end?” And the more we talked about it, the more we realized that we are all promised “hard”. And as much as we might want an answer of when it all ends, we don’t usually get that. But we are also promised that Jesus will never leave us or forsake us. And what He constantly reminded me of during those hard times, is that He had brought me through every single day up to that point. I had made it; I had survived. And while that maybe didn’t feel like much of an accomplishment, to only be able to say, “I made it through,” it should be enough for me to be confident that He would continue to help me through. And then, as this time of “survival mode” continued, God slowly began to change my mindset where I could begin to enjoy the days and the time and see all the joy and good in everything again! He had promised to get me through, and He was, and is faithful.
Hebrews 12:26-28 “At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” This phrase, ‘yet once more,’ indicated the removal of things that are shaken – that is, things that have been made – in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe.”
This scripture has been comforting to me in knowing that when I feel like things around me are shaking, it will only reveal the solidness of Gods support and presence in my life. The things that are shaken in my life are things that I might feel attachment to, like my comforts or circumstances, but in the midst of the shaking, they are proven to only be temporary. God may be stripping away things that are NOT eternal, in order for my focus to be placed on things that ARE eternal. I have begun to learn through this season of life, to trust God with our provisions and when things feel hard ,to lean into the constant presence that I know He provides in my life.
I am not always good at trusting God and releasing control, but sometimes I have been forced to trust because there was no other option! And maybe that is the best place to be, because He always comes through.
We want to thank Joanna Capps for sharing this post.
Women's Ministry 