Guys,
I hate trust.
Mmm… maybe it’s more like I don’t like trusting….
Ya know what though, let’s be real. It’s really just that I don’t always/usually/sometimes enjoy trusting God. IT’S HARD!
This past year was arguably the best year of my life on paper. I completed the adventure of a lifetime with the World Race, started dating the most amazing girl, moved to Texas, got wrecked at a discipleship school, moved back to Minnesota and (FINALLY!) spent a summer with friends in Bemidji. I then got engaged to previously mentioned girl, moved to Kentucky (basically southern Cincinnati), and the day after 2020 ended I married the love of my life (Yes, the same girl)!
The only thing is, on the flip side, 2020 was also probably the toughest year of my life.
I’ve been off social media for about a month now and will continue to be off for the foreseeable future. A big reason for this is that I’m tired of comparison, distraction, and the mind numbing-ness of scrolling through feeds. Most of all though, I’m tired of masks.
We all know what I’m talking about. I’m just as guilty of this as anyone else. It’s the Instagram vs. Reality life. We see only what others want us to see and reveal only what we want to reveal. In an age of “connectedness” we’ve lost true connection and intimacy because we post the good (and even staged) and never the bad. I don’t want to go off on too much of a tangent here, but guys, last year was pretty rough at times and you wouldn’t know it from my Insta posts or a quick summary of my life like above.
Let’s redo the life summary paragraph from above with an extreme dose of reality and see how it looks:
Last year, God asked me to trust Him (my word for the year). He asked me to not hold a job for the first six months of 2020. Mind you this is during a pandemic and meeting my girlfriend’s family (try meeting your future in-laws while choosing to be unemployed)! I moved four different times, I had a skin parasite for months that caused itching worse than I thought was possible, and I said quite a few goodbyes to family and friends. I worked a job I didn’t want (twice!), I often felt isolated and lonely throughout the year and struggled to plug into a church, and I finished the year unemployed for almost all of December.
In all of this, God continued to ask me to trust Him more and more in literally every area of my life. Looking back, I can see how I grew and matured through it all, but guys, in the moment, true trust sucks! In short, there are a lot of times I hate it! But what I’ve discovered is that true, full trust in God isn’t in the fake. It’s in the real, hard, painfulness of life sometimes, and it can be the hardest, loneliest thing you ever walk through. That said, it can have fruit and rewards that make it all worth it.
Neither of the above paragraphs accurately summarize my 2020. One of them is all sunshine and about as fake as can be. The other, is overly dramatic and doesn’t recognize God’s providence in my life. What’s real, and true, is in the middle; and that’s where the trust is.
You see, trust isn’t about sticking with God in only the highs and lows. It isn’t about defining moments. True, actual, trust is this:
Consistency.
That middle ground between the high and the low is where we find consistency. God never changes. We do. Therefore, my life and trust isn’t determined by the peaks and valleys, the joy and pain. It’s defined by who I am and how I trust in the mundane, in the normal, in the average; just like who we are. We aren’t our Instagram profiles, but we also aren’t bad or evil. We are simply sons and daughters on our way home and that’s where the trust is. In the every day. In the consistency. That’s where God is.
If you’re struggling with trust, I want to challenge you. Don’t look to trust God more in the bad or even in the good. Instead, spend time with Him every day for the next two weeks. If you already do this, spend more time with Him. Watch how consistency is actually what produces trust. It’s hard I know. I’m still struggling with some of this. And yet, I know in the pain and joy, the highs and the lows, that my Father is good and I can trust Him. How do I know this?
Because, trust is found in consistency and true consistency is found only in Jesus.
Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing
love,
for I have put my trust in you.
Show me the way I should go,
for to you I entrust my life.
Psalm 143:8
God Bless Y’all (I live in Kentucky now so gotta work on my accent haha)
Ben
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