When it all falls apart

Sometimes, I try to make God like me—constrained by time and space, overtaken by anxiety, fearful of the next step.

Sometimes, I choose to put my faith in my own ability to get me out of a mess or to carry me past anxiety. And when it all gets to be too much, I find myself feeling abandoned and overwhelmed, tired and broken.

Today, I walked into work feeling that way. And I opened up the March issue of ec, an issue I’d edited months before and read the devotion for today (the Monday devo on page 58).

And guess what it was about? Trusting God. The intro asked me who I was putting my trust in—God or myself. The Scripture questions told me to seek confidence from the promises of God’s Word. The challenge asked me to trust the Lord as I seek to live according to His will and be His light in this world.

On the facing page, I’d placed a quote from one of my favorite movies, Field of Dreams, with the exhortation to “make living for Christ your focus.”

I didn’t know all those weeks ago when I was editing this issue that those words were for me. I didn’t know that God would use my own work and my own words to speak truth into my life. And while I still feel incredibly unworthy of all God has chosen to give me and this work He has asked me to do, I am humbled that He hears the pleas of my heart and knows the burdens I carry.

So today, I’m turning to the promises of God. That He isn’t like me. That He thinks I’m worth it, so much so that He would give His only Son for me. That there is this desire in me to really live in obedience to what He has said and that He will honor that.

And most of all, I’m realizing that confidence in God isn’t something you just get. Oh, I believe and I know that Jesus is my only hope, but I also realize that confidence comes through having the opportunity to let go and trust Him. Which is what I’m striving to do with every fiber of my being today.