7 - Choices: honoring and trusting God
A few weeks passed after I had found the church God showed me in the dream and after the admonition to look to God for my answers. I decided to drop out of college and let my parents know of my decision. During this same period of time, my parents decided to temporarily relocate to Daytona Beach. My Mom had decided to train for and become a registered nurse. I really did not know what I wanted to do and decided to relocate with them.
Prior to relocating, one Sunday morning in church I was considering my life and the question arose in my mind whether I had the right to stay in church; you know, whether I was good enough and the kind of person God would want. Who can say they are that good?
After considering it a bit, I decided that since God had chosen to get involved in my life and to show this church to me, I would honor God by staying and trusting him despite my own thoughts and doubts. Although I did not know it then, this decision to trust Him is a fundamental precept to having God reveal himself to you. How else is one to discover that God can be trusted unless one makes the choice to trust him and, in the process, discover whether or not He is real (and can be trusted)?
The following week, during the song period, I was thinking about myself and was concerned as to whether I would be able to live my life without losing the relationship with God that seemed to be developing. The pastor’s father, who was still in Naples, stopped the singing and said “Be confident, He who has begun in you a good work will complete it” and then continued the song service. My thought, again, was that “these are really strange things that are going on; but a coincidence; not likely” and decided to trust that God was in control and capable of keeping me.
Life went on. Still struggled with the problem of the fear I was dealing with. And….still looking for a way out of the struggle.
But, how much does God control the world we live in? Check out the next page, “8 – The bent blade of grass and the lost penny!”.
Notes
A few thoughts about these two experiences.
Absent a choice to trust God and remain in the church, I would not have been present the following week to be reassured of God’s presence in my life. My trust was validated and through it, the reality of God was demonstrated yet again. Choosing to believe in and trust God is a fundamental precept to his revealing his reality to you. It is a choice.
But again, even as God is able to hear a silent prayer, as demonstrated in earlier events, it is just as clear from this experience that God is aware of the inward thoughts of our heart. It is also clear that not only is He is aware of our inward thoughts but is willing and able to respond to them.
As I have mentioned elsewhere on this website, one of the ways God communicates to people is through other people. Consider Acts 8:29 where the Holy Spirit directed Philip to go up to a chariot in which rode an Ethiopian, an eunuch of great authority who had charge of all the treasure of Queen Candace of the Ethiopians. God was, through the Holy Spirit, sending Philip to respond to a question in the Ethiopian’s mind regarding a scripture found in Isaiah; a scripture that speaks of Jesus. But to see the whole story, read Acts 8:26-36.
This is all to say that even as God communicated to Philip through the Holy Spirit for the benefit of the Ethiopian, so God communicated to the pastor through the Holy Spirit for my benefit.
A few scriptures
Psalm 139:2 (KJV) “You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar.”
1 John 3:20 (KJV) “For whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything.”
Acts 8:29 (KJV) “Then the Spirit said unto Philip, Go near, and join thyself to this chariot.”