Let me tell you a secret – I don't trust God.
Last night, I spoke with Dave Eubank of the Free Burma Rangers.
This guy is no slack. Since 1997, he has lived in the jungle and hiked miles on end for days at a time with his family (small children on back) into Burma to rescue and treat over 1 million displaced refugees. His spirit screams of love.
Dave has been in the midst of battle and seen some of the worst conditions that man can see, but the one thing he kept repeating that echoed deep in my spirit was, "One thing we have learned is we know that we can trust God."
Here he is daily putting his life at risk, knowing that he may pay the price for another in love at any moment; a man who has seen numbers of people blown to pieces and countless lives lost before him, yet he says over and over again with the utmost humility, "We have learned we know that we can trust God."
What does trusting God look like?
"The rangers must be the last ones out," Dave said.
"Sometimes we are under attack, but we leave it up to our rangers whether or not to fight back.
We can, but we choose not to.
We have learned that even then, we really can trust God."
What does it look like to really trust God?
"The more you love, the braver you will be," Dave told me.
Observing the humble character in this man, it's easy to see that in this bravery comes trust.
Bravery doesn't necessarily mean to come out with guns blazin'.
Take a look at Jericho for a second.
Did God ask Joshua to gather the troops and a battering ram to bust down the walls? No.
Did God ask them to set up shop and fire all of their best shots over the wall? No.
Did God ask them to burn the place to the ground? No.
He asked them to circle the city once a day for six days
and on the seventh to circle it seven times then blow a horn.
What!? How dumb could you be!?
Yet Joshua trusted God, marched, and blew the horn.
You know what happened from there…
Truth is, we could come out with our best weapons, firing on all cylinders, and hitting all the high notes of what we know we can do – given by God, but that doesn't always mean that we trust God does it? Trusting God sometimes looks like not firing back and letting Him fight your battles for you, even when you have the chance to defend yourself. Sometimes trusting God looks like marching in circles waiting on the hand of God to crumble the wall himself – exactly what He wanted in the first place. Sometimes really trusting God looks like putting down our weapons, our gifts, and those things that we know we can do and simply throwing our hands in the air to praise a faithful God saying, "God, this doesn't look very good to me right now, but I know I can trust You!"
I have spent the last hour bawling my eyes out because I just realized that I don't trust God – but I want to.
I'm horrible at recognizing that my skills and talents aren't what God needs to accomplish His tasks.
My actions don't always roll with my heart.
I give my two cents.
I arrange things to fit the situation.
I 'properly' position myself for 'success'.
And it looks good.
But then I fail.
I am learning that really trusting God looks like me putting down my weapons and letting God fight my battles for me. Really trusting God is marching like a lion and coming out like a lamb.
It sometimes feels like hell.
But is it really worth it?
Ten fold.
