Trust without Understanding.

by Evangelynn

There are some seasons in my life that I wish could stay the same forever – seasons of happiness, seasons of friendships, seasons of ministry. Then there are some seasons that I can’t wait for to be over – seasons of hurt, seasons of tiredness, seasons of confusion. If I had it my way, I’d be rewinding and fast forwarding my watch whenever I felt like it. But that’s not how clocks work. YOU follow time. Time doesn’t follow you. But how I wish it did.

There was a season in my life in 2016 that I felt didn’t have any purpose or direction. Time was moving so slowly and I was aimlessly going through routine after routine. I was bored. I wanted to fast forward time and get to the “exciting” part of my life. I wanted to skip to the part where I was doing the job that I dreamed of, with the person that I dreamed of, doing things that I dreamed of. But I was still stuck in the same season. I thought it would never change.

But suddenly, as the new year approached, there was an area in my life that I felt was moving too quickly. It was a season in my life that I wanted to last forever. But as I saw it slowly slipping away from me, I began to realize that it was not going to last forever as I had so hoped. I wanted to rewind time and go back to how everything used to be. I tried holding on to it as tightly as I could. I wanted to salvage what I could. But that only worsened things. Finally, I had to come to terms with the fact that that season was over. And by trying to hang on to it, I was only hurting myself. I had to let it go.

In both of those seasons, God told me to trust.

But sometimes, I don’t know how to trust when I don’t understand God’s timing. Why would He stick us in dry, repetitive seasons? Why would He place us in weary, difficult seasons? And why would He take seemingly good seasons away from us? I don’t understand.

But I suppose that’s what trust is. Real trust is trusting even though we don’t understand. Real trust is letting go of the reins even when you can’t see what’s ahead of you. Real trust is trusting in God.

The season that I had to let go – I had trusted in it and I had put hope in it. But it was false trust and false hope. I put my trust in the wrong thing. And God took it away from me so that I could realize what real trust and real hope looks like. It looks like Him. So even though I had to let go of something that meant so much to me, I gained much more. I gained real trust and real hope.

Learn to trust even when you don’t understand. I trust God not because I understand His timing, but because I know that He is good and faithful. Because He is good, I know that what God takes away from the past, He will replace with so much more. And because He is faithful, I know that what God promises for the future, He will fulfill beyond expectations. I just need to be patient and TRUST. No fast forwarding and no rewinding. WE follow God’s time. God’s time doesn’t follow us. So even though sometimes we beg God to prolong a season or shorten a season, nothing we do can change the time. Instead, we need to allow the time to change us. There is purpose to every season. Each season is meant to change us and to grow us. God places us in specific seasons for specific reasons. We just need to TRUST.

I recently got a new watch and on the back of the watch, I engraved the words “TRUST.” Every time I wear that watch, I am reminded to trust in His timing. It may be hard to trust in His timing when we have our own timing, but how freeing is it to know that our watches don’t move because we manually move the hands every second of every minute? Rather, it moves because of a greater, more trustworthy power. I don’t have to understand that power to know that it is making my clock tick. All I know is that my watch is ticking and I trust that power because I hear the evidence – I hear the ticking. See. I don’t have to understand God to trust Him. I trust Him because I see the evidence of His goodness and faithfulness in my life. I hear the evidence. I hear the ticking. That’s the time of His watch. I trust that.