The whys of life...and TRUST

I love Google.  I am interning at Channel 8 this semester, and one of my responsibilities is to monitor the switchboard/front desk for an hour on the days that I’m there.  This morning, a gentleman called and asked me for a number which I had no earthly idea how to locate.  I calmly asked him to wait while I pulled up Google, typed in the equivalent of How am I supposed to find a contact number for this company? and within I had the desired digits. 

My addiction to Google may borderline on pathetic, but it helps me explain things I can’t understand.  It gives me answers when I don’t have the right ones.  Tonight, I don’t have a lot of answers.  I don’t know why something called cancer exists.  I don’t know why it can break the youngest and the best.  I don’t know why it is about to take the life of one of my friends…unless God chooses to act and work the miracle I selfishly long to see.  

When my roommate Cheyenne called me this afternoon and gave me the update on our friend's rapidly declining condition, all I could think was Why?  The above whys and many others started swirling around in my head.  I didn’t have answers to them, and I knew I couldn’t find them on Google.

I’m at work tonight, and the tornadoes in the area have kept all the smart people in Knoxville away from the gym.  The quieter-than-usual atmosphere has given me the chance to pray…and think.  I’ve thought about why I have so many whys, and why I probably won’t get all the answers to them this side of heaven.

When it comes down to it, the remedy for the unanswered why’s of life is found in TRUST.  Trust in God.  Trust in Jeremiah 29:11 – even when everything around us is screaming that it can’t be true.  For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.  Trust is making the choice to believe this, even when your head – and maybe everyone around you – is screaming out that you shouldn’t.  

Can you guess what I did when I started meditating on the word trust?  Yep…I Google-ed.  And my bff provided the following definition from Merriam-Webster: an assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something. 

In hindsight, it’s always amazing how God prepares those He loves for the day ahead…whatever it may bring.  The Jesus Calling devotional I am reading this year had the following quote for today’s passage: The level of peace you experience corresponds with the level of trust you have in Me.  

Trust.  Reliance that is assured, steadfast, on the unchanging, constant character of God.  Reliance on His strength and power.  Reliance in the truth that He is acting out of a love for His children that cannot be measured.  Reliance in the truth that He is acting in their best interest…even though it doesn’t look like it at the moment.  

Here’s another definition for trust that Merriam-Webster provided: something committed or entrusted to one to be used or cared for in the interest of another.

Did you catch that?!  We can entrust our faith, our hope, our love to our Father because He is trustworthy.  He won’t manipulate our trust or take advantage of it.  He will guard it, and it will ultimately serve in our best interest.  

Be careful for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God.  And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.  (Philippians 4:6,7)

The peace He provides – which we experience in correspondence with the amount of trust we place in Him – is unexplainable.  It transcends all human understanding.  We won’t be able to fathom why we have it when everything around us is screaming that we shouldn’t.  

But we can.  No matter what circumstances we find ourselves in the middle of, He is greater.  His peace extends to the most violent, most devastating of them all and longs to encompass us.  All we have to do is trust Him.