Trust

I read this statement yesterday in my current book One Thousand Gifts- you really should just read the book. It is really fitting my life right now- I feel like it was written just for me :) Anyways, here's the statement that I've been pondering- "Lament is a cry of belief in a good God, a God who has His ear to our hearts, a God who transfigures the ugly into beauty. Complaint is the bitter howl of unbelief in any benevolent God in this moment, a distrust in the love-beat of the Father's heart."

I've really been thinking about all the complaining I do and what that says about my trust in God. I have realized in the last month or so that I have not trusted that God is a good God. I certainly would have told anyone who asked that I believe God is good and He is sovereign but in my deepest self, I've wondered if that is really true. I have believed He is in control and He orders all things but I've wondered if He is really good. If the heartache and ugliness of this world could possibly exist if God is really good. Even though in my head, I have known that He is good and I've known that eventually I would figure it out in my heart, it's still been a hard place. Those are not questions that are easily answered or easily examined. It frightens me to look deeply into the motives and intents of my heart. I don't like what I see, most of the time. I see so much grasping and clenching for control and power and yet I still say I want to be free and open and receive God's gifts.

I'm learning now that trust grows from moment by moment acknowledgment and gratitude for the gifts God has given me. When I thank Him for the sweet chubby fingers of my two year old pressing into my cheeks as  he whispers, "Be quiet Mommy, see the dark" because in his mind, darkness means quiet, I guess. I can thank God for that moment. I can remember when he was born and the night we were so afraid he wouldn't recover and his lungs wouldn't start to work. I can remember that he is a gift from God. When I thank God for sunshine, for rain, for flowers, I see His gifts around me and I can know that He is caring for me today and that is enough. I'm seeing how He doesn't stop giving. It is gratitude that feeds trust and leads to joy and love. Ann Voskamp said this in her book but before that, a wise friend told me she learned this from reading the Psalms and watching how David lamented his afflictions but always remembered how God had provided and cared in the past and trusted He would provide again.

I want to be able to lament without complaining to God. I hate the bitter anger that is sometimes in my prayer. It's so ugly. Certainly there are moments of raw pain but when I forget that God is good or choose not to believe that, the pain is just compounded and I somehow start to feel justified in my anger as if I ever really deserved any grace in the first place. Then I just have this wall that builds and builds until finally something happens and somehow God, who I had already rejected in my anger and disbelief, in patient pursuit, calls me back to Himself and tears down my walls. Isn't God good?

Gratitude and prayer are disciplines. That is what I'm really learning. I have to discipline myself to look for the gifts God gives me and purpose to thank Him. I have to stop running around long enough to really be quiet before God. I have to find that place of rest in my soul, regardless of how chaotic my world is in that moment, I need to live every breath of my life coram Deo - before the face of God. That's the only way anything ever makes sense. I can trust a God that I have lived my life with, a God who has graciously given me everything I need for life in godliness, who has promised to restore the years the locusts have eaten (that's in Joel 2:25, that whole chapter is full of such great images).

I'm asking God to give me the grace to trust Him more, to be able to open my fists and lay calm before Him, ready to be filled and ready to overflow His grace to my dear sisters in Christ- that is my desire.