Trusting during trials

Proverbs 3:5, Jer 29:11 Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." 

Over the last few months, I have been dealing with some personal challenges and frustrations. I have felt angry with the Lord and then wondered where He went. I have felt deserted and very lonely. I felt as if He has been far from me. 

Yet when I am really honest with myself, I find that the truthful reason I am angry is because I didn't get my own way. Things didn't go the way I thought they should. I didn't see answers to prayer happening the way I wanted. While I should feel joy at seeing answers, I sulked because God didn't follow my plan.   

It all came down to the fact that I was only trusting Him when things went my way. I wasn't putting my trust in the One that holds my eternity in His hands. Trust for me is a very difficult process. I have found it easier to not trust than to become vulnerable to others or even to the Lord. This is one of the things the Lord is working on in my life. 

Learning to trust in the Lord with all your heart means to submit to His will. It means to believe what the scripture tells us. It means that when we feel led to step out of our comfort zone, we truly believe that we don't step out alone.  
He has promised to never leave us nor forsake us. The enemy will try to tell us that God doesn't love us because of the things that happen in our lives, but true faith means that we tell the enemy to take a long walk off a short pier. It means we trust the Lord even in the valley. It means that after the mountain top experience, when we face the journey back to the valley, we still trust His ways. 

There will always be a valley after the mountain top. When we deal with that journey, we grow in trust and we grow stronger in faith. The one thing to remember in the journey is that God never moves. We do. He loves us enough to keep calling us back to fellowship with Him. 

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