Trust and Obey

“Trust and obey, for there’s no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey.”

I have some friends who have a “word of the year.”  It’s a word that the Lord has impressed on them, and He seems to be teaching them all the time about that word. Everywhere they turn, they are being shown a new thing by the Lord about their word of the year. I totally get that, because for about five years, God was impressing a word onto my heart. As in, it took FIVE YEARS for the word to truly sink in. And the word is….

TRUST

I have loved the Lord deeply since He literally snatched me up from hell and set my feet on solid ground. I was walking one way, and when I met Jesus, my whole self turned around and started on a new path. My life is living proof that God can love and change the heart of the most ridiculous rebel on earth and cause her to love people she hated, forgive people she begrudged, and sing praises from lips that once cursed. I LOVED the God Who forgave me from day one. But I didn’t realize that I DIDN’T TRUST HIM. 

It breaks my heart to say it now. But I didn’t trust God. There’s a Shane and Shane song that says..

“It’s taken me some time to believe there’ll never come a day that you’ll ever leave.”

That resonated with me.  I knew the sinner I was(am). I knew what I’d done to God. How could He love me forever, regardless of who I was(am)? How could I trust Him to be sovereign over my life when He allowed bad things to happen? I was terrified God was going to jerk the rug out from under me when I least expected it, because don’t I deserve that? I was living in love with Him, but I didn’t TRUST Him.

He began to ask me to do things for His kingdom, and I was obeying kicking and screaming. You know what I’m talking about. I tried to DISOBEY, but God didn’t give me a choice and wouldn’t leave me be, so I reluctantly obeyed with a side of anxiety. I obeyed while giving God the side-eye. Like, “Any minute now, You’re going to abandon me in this place You made me go.” And one of those places was a children’s home in the Philippines.

He asked me to go there, and I did go the first time after trying to weasel out of it. Then, I FELL IN LOVE with the people and children and place. And I trusted God {thismuchmore} because even though being there tore my heart up, I realized He was doing a thing in me that I could not have done for myself. I met the most amazing babies and kids. There was a little boy there-we’ll call him Eric-that the Lord would use in a drastic way to teach me about trust.

My team leader had fallen in love with Eric when she served in the chlldren’s home a couple of years prior. He had been brought into the home as a newborn VERY sick baby with many health problems. He was a literal miracle baby who survived despite the odds and was now thriving. And I fell in love with him, too. He was so silly, so sweet, and gave the best hugs. A very special little dude. I can still remember the little tank top he had on the first time I met him and his big almond-shaped eyes soaking it all in.

When my team came home from that first trip, J.D. and I knew we felt called to adopt from the Philippines. It was as clear as day to us. And God used the entire adoption process to help me trust Him {thismuchmore}. But, let me tell you..the lesson he taught me through Eric was the spiritual turning point in my trust issues with the sovereign God.

About a year into the adoption process, I was already planning to go back with another team to serve the precious Filipino people. I could barely stay away. We were told that we would likely be on the waiting list to be matched with a child for years, unless we chose a child from the waiting child list. The waiting child list is a listing with children who have special needs or larger sibling groups. So we waited. Every month, I’d get that waiting child list and pray over it, all the while torn up for those babies who needed parents. I knew that the Lord might ask us to adopt off the list. We prayed and waited. Then one day, who showed up on the list? Yep, you guessed it. ERIC. Those big almond eyes staring at me. My heart started beating a thousand miles an hour. I immediately knew HE WAS OUR SON. 

J.D. and I rejoiced and immediately called our social worker to request his file. We started the process of officially asking to adopt him. For me, there was no doubt that he was ours. God had obviously sent me there to know and love these babies because Eric was our son. I had never been more sure of anything in my life. We couldn’t tell anyone because there are very strict laws concerning sharing information on children in the Philippines, and we didn’t want to risk doing anything that would jeopardize our chances of becoming his parents.

So, we applied to be Eric’s parents. And we waited. And waited. And waited.

After six long weeks, the adoption board sent word through our social worker that we were still being considered for Eric. I was THRILLED at this news! See! God, you are coming through! WOOOOHOOOOO!!!! I was one hundred percent sure that he was our baby.

I can still remember that I was in the parking lot of Bed Bath and Beyond because I was going to get a noodle maker. Isn’t it weird what you remember when you come to a crossroads in your life? We got the call.

We had not been chosen as Eric’s parents.

It’s still hard to think about it. It was misting rain, and I just sat in my car staring up at Heaven. How could I have missed it? I was SO SURE that You had chosen us for Eric. How could I be so wrong? And as I was crying..this weird mixture of being so happy that God had placed Eric in a family and so sad and angry that it wasn’t us..I looked through my windshield and yelled “I TRUST YOU!!!!!!” I said it over and over. And I meant it. Whatever God had planned for us and for Eric, for my life, for my heart, in that moment, I finally trusted Him.  In my disappointment and heartache, I trusted Him. He was using my HURT to bring me to a greater place of TRUST.

There was no way in that moment that I could know the pure joy that He would bring to my family just a few months later when we were matched with our daughter…the daughter that He knew would be mine, even as my heart broke knowing I would not be Eric’s mama.

The rest of the line in that Shane and Shane song says “That when they drove the nails through Your hands, you did not recant. You never take it back.”

God did a very cool thing a few weeks after we found out we were not chosen for Eric. I was able to return to the children’s home where he lived and pray over him. I was able to hug that sweet boy, knowing that God Almighty had placed him in a family who would love him. God was being so gracious to me to allow that.

I can finally say without a doubt that I can trust Him. You can trust Him. He is worthy.

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight.” Prov 3:5-6(NIV)