Trust Me

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. (Phil 4:6-7)

It is this “peace of God” that has been eluding me lately while I tried to figure out what I have to do to get it back. Then the Lord gave me this verse from Isaiah: “I will wait for the LORD…I will put my trust in him” (Isaiah 8:17). It was then that I realized that God has been telling me, “trust me,” while I was trying to answer my own requests and manufacture the peace only He can give. Dumb! We are to bring our requests to him and wait faithfully to see what He does! If we keep trying to do for ourselves what only God can do we are just being faithless, and this faithlessness is the core of all fear and anxiety. We were not made to be rugged individualists. We are neither omnipotent nor omniscient, but we were made for relationship with the God of the universe who is both of these things and so much more! So when we cry, ”Abba Father,” and the Spirit of the Son within us intercedes on our behalf, bringing our requests to the Father, He always hears and answers according to His will and purpose for us. This is the wonderful pathway of communication that was put in place when the Son of God took upon himself the human nature, becoming like us in every way but without sin. He showed us how to deny ourselves, while living abundantly according to the will of the Father. Then He died and rose again so he could give us the gift of the Holy Spirit who is the source of that peace that had eluded me until I heard Him say, "Trust me. You don't have to do anything I don't give you the power to do." The wonderful mystery of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that we can do whatever God asks of us, if by faith we trust Him and allow Him to do it!  The apostle Paul was our example of how this works when he said, “I can do all things through Him who strengthens me” (Phil.4:13).