I really do love to cook good meals for my family. Everyone sitting around the table sharing about their day, laughing together, and creating dinner time memories. I mean this is what good moms do, right? But the reality is that I haven’t cooked many meals this summer. We’ve been on the go, I’ve been a little lazy, and quite honestly it has just been too hot. But I decided to get back into good habits last week and planned meals, made a grocery list, and even tackled the grocery store (my least favorite part of the meal planning process).
I had it all together and was feeling rather proud of my efforts (this is usually a short-lived feeling). But as it turned out, the meal I had so lovingly planned for that evening required a key ingredient that I didn’t buy at the store. It actually never even made the list. And while real chefs could probably improvise the recipe to accommodate this oversight, I was perplexed. Without this key ingredient, the meal would not work.
Our relationship with Christ has a key ingredient just like my recipe does. Without the key ingredient our relationship just doesn’t work. A real relationship with our Savior requires trust. Trust in His guidance, trust in His protection, trust in His forgiveness and grace, trust in His love, trust in His timing, and trust in His plans for our future. We have to trust Him with our lives and with the lives of our children, our parents, and our friends.
I wish that trust was something as simple as a trip to the grocery store could fix. There are certainly days when my trust seems to fade. Rather than trust in Him, I want to take action in my own way, in my own time. I want to reason it out and try to understand situations from my flawed human perspective. I want to know today what will happen tomorrow. And as my trust begins to weaken, the doubt and worry begin to take over. And make no mistake about it, doubt and worry are best friends with the enemy. They are some of His most useful methods to derail us, blind us from the truth, and lead us down dark paths. At the very least, they cause us to reflect inwardly and selfishly rather than looking up and allowing God to handle our challenges, our insecurities, and even our failures.
Proverbs 3:5 tells us “to trust in the Lord with all our hearts”. He desires a full commitment from us to trust Him completely in every way and in every area of our lives. If it is big enough for us to worry about, then it is worthy of our prayer time. Worry does nothing productive in our lives. In fact, it just leads to more worry, stress, and chaos (and even causes more wrinkles). It is only through trust that we can experience real peace in our lives.
And if our doubt begins to trip us up, we need to take that doubt and lay it at His feet. He understands doubt. He isn’t insulted by it. He is so much bigger than that. Thomas, who was one of the 12 disciples of Jesus, had doubts. He witnessed the miracles that we only read about. He saw the saving power of our Savior up close and personal. And yet his doubt came front and center. When he heard Jesus was raised from the dead, he proclaimed he wouldn’t believe it until he could see for himself. And our loving Savior met him right there in his doubt. Thomas was the only one that Jesus invited to touch his wounds. He will meet us in our doubts too. He will provide assurance when we need it, we need only to seek Him through prayer and reading His word.
Regardless of our hurts, regardless of the pain and the struggles we face, our Savior is worthy of our trust. He wants more than anything to be able to provide comfort, to strengthen our walk, and to give us a peace we can’t even understand.
My prayer is that we recognize how vital trust is in our relationship with Christ. That we meet worry and doubt with the loving compassion of our Savior. And that we place our whole hearts in His capable hands.
