Lessons in Trust by Amber

Last summer I went through a test of trust, in a situation that didn’t make sense.

I had found a good spot to sell my wares. But I felt God wanted me to leave my “hot” selling spot. I felt God wanted me to go somewhere else. 

I struggled with understanding why, however. I mean, I was excited for the adventure of going someplace new. But the more I thought about it, the more it bugged me.

Why was I leaving the hot selling spot, again?

As I kept asking the Lord why, I felt Him speaking to my heart.

“I have to take you through this,” I felt God speak to me. “I have to put you in a position where you’ll need Me. The last location would have been comfortable for you, sure. It’s true you could have sold quicker, without even really seeking Me or pressing in to truly connect to me.”

Those words comforted me and gave me the expectation that God would meet me here, too.

Then, while I was there, a man came and handed me a card. The front read: “The will of God will never lead you where the grace of God cannot keep you.”

And on the other side was Jeremiah 29:11: “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not harm you; plans to give you a hope and a future.”

It struck me how fitting it was, and it gave me peace. God knew where we were, what we needed.

It was like God was saying, “It’s okay, I know.”

I kept having to pray for customers, asking God to send people to us. I sold out just as light began to shift into dusk.

Victory! We rejoiced! We thanked God!

As we drove away, I pondered the day. It had stretched me, but now I could see the value of it. God had led us to a new place, but we still had to choose to yield to it, to follow Him and trust Him. I could have said no and not left the previous hot-selling spot. But then we wouldn’t have found the victory we had, either.

I can see the importance of responding when God has something for you. God never wants you to become presumptuous and sedentary. For that reason, He’s always offering new opportunities to exercise the practice of seeking Him, trusting Him. These plans are always to prosper us, to enrich us in learning more of Him.

And I got another chance to exercise seeking God. It was a few weeks ago.

I felt moved in my heart to help finish a log home. Initially, I wasn’t going to go. Things came up. But I still felt a strong urge to go help.

I watched God move the situations around. He said He would make a way in the desert, and He did. Before long, I was heading out. I couldn’t explain why. I just knew God had something for me in it—an ingredient He wanted to put into my life. I carried a real sense of expectation.

Once, the plan changed.

Part of the job was chinking the log home. However, with warm days waning, we decided to move that chinking job into the last stretch of warmer days before the cold weather hit. Other work kept us busy longer than expected. The warm days were running out, and I started to feel the pressure of the narrowing window.

I wondered if we would even get to the chinking in time.

Finally we were ready—with only one warm day left.

Then the weather shifted again. A week later the days warmed back up. .

So I found myself questioning the urgency. Why push through on that single day when more good weather was coming?

I still didn’t understand it all, but I had to trust God. If now was the time, then now was the time. 

I kept remembering that He had put the desire in me to come before I knew any of the details. There was something He was doing, even if I couldn’t see it yet.

So we started. 

We only had one day to finish the entire project, and it didn’t look like enough time.

Thirteen hours later, we were done. It felt like a miracle! I felt so much joy in the middle of the work, and finishing that quickly was glorious.

I knew this was part of what I had come for. But I also sensed it wasn’t everything God wanted to do in me through this job.

As the days went on, more layers of “trust” began to surface.

God began peeling back the layers to show me more and more what “trust” truly was, and the need for it in my life.

One morning, I heard someone sharing about trust. 

“True trust is a gift from God,” he explained.

“It’s not something you can come up with or dole out. You can’t base trust off of how YOU find ‘trustworthy.’ That kind of trust, based on human conditions, isn’t real.

“Yet blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose hope IS the Lord.” Jeremiah 17:7.

As I listened, he described what that meant. The many times in his life that the Lord had spoken to trust Him. 

Not the situations. Not the people in the situations. But to trust God despite it all.

He shared about how he’d have to practice that trust in the Lord in situations that looked irredeemably lost. Through it all, he became more blessed than he ever had been before.

I had heard that verse before, but I heard it differently this time: “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose hope is the Lord.”

I began to see that’s when your trust is no longer merely trusting man. That’s subject to circumstances and expectations, and given or withheld based upon who is trustworthy or who is not.

Instead, that heavenly gift of true trust is trusting in the Lord. That trust defies situations and even people and whatever they may do.

Having this trust is very blessed. It sows seeds that will produce good fruit in your life, regardless of what a situation may look like according to your interpretation of it.

Another way this trust in the Lord is so powerful is this: that trust doesn’t have fear in it! You can do the things He would have you do without being limited by fear of the outcome.

It was an answer to what I was looking for and needing! I’m very thankful for these parts God is adding to my life!