ROOTED RENEGADE

For many of us the word TRUST alone is scary, defeating, harsh, off limits, and among many other things creates walls so high inside of us they are like the walls of Jericho. I am not sure soldiers marching with trumpets could bring them down. Our perceptions of trust have been jaded by life’s circumstances and people’s mistreatment. At times our own defects of character have destroyed the very essence of meaning in this one word.

As I go deeper in the “Off The Grid” Challenge, I am finding myself all the ways in which I personally have struggled with many things. Some I still do. Like the drain being unclogged from a stopped up bathtub, God is showing me the areas where I need to be cleansed and most definitely healed.

Trust…the definition is a firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something. (www.dictionary.com)

Hmm…when I read this part of the definition (there are two other parts) I can see why I have such a hard time trusting given the circumstances of my life. I can also understand why people often say “trust is earned”. Trust is hard. It can be painful. It has depths that many of us barely scratch the surface of most of our lives. Often times we chose not too because our pain becomes our identity. Others because we just simply don’t know how to unclog a clogged drain. Some of us have never learned how to live a life of blind faith.

Thinking about trust beyond its basic definition and looking at it from a spiritual aspect I came up with an acronym. One that really is in sync with my word for the year Uncommon.

Transforming trust should be just that. ..transforming. It should take us out of our comfort zones and quite honestly make us be in the places of discomfort that draw us so close to God we never want to leave His presence. Because those places are where we change. They are where our lives do the 180 degree turn catapulting us into the transformation process where change begins from the inside out. And that is where trust begins.

Relationship is what Jesus wants with us. Intimate. Up close and personal. Best friends. As close as close can get. The essence of a relationship is trust. They go hand and hand. No relationship thrives without trust. The Father knows the difficulty but He also knows the attainabilty. Which is why when Peter got out of the boat and walked out on the water to meet Him and then began to drown, Jesus simply reached out His hand to him and helped him back up. Relationship and trust go hand and hand.

Unaltered is the state we must get to in our relationship with the Father. Not perfection. While most of us strive for perfection in our lives, we will miss the mark time and time again. It is inevitable. None of us are perfect except for Jesus. We can however have a relationship with Jesus that strives to be unaltered. True that unaltered does mean remaining the same, unchanged. I use this term to mean that our relationship with Him, while it can go deeper on many levels in its intimacy, should never falter back to nothing. It shouldn’t waver back and forth but be solid in its foundation like a house built on a rock…not sand. Sand changes shape when the waves sweep over it but a rock stands firm, unaltered. Catch my drift?

Salvific trust well basically is like the terms definition and needs little explanation. It leads to salvation. Heavenly trust. Your trust in Yahweh should never point you away from Him but lead you to Him every time.

Treasure. Oh what treasures can be found in trusting our Creator! God did not create us because He was bored one day and decided to partake in extra curricular activities. No! He created mankind in His image and likeness for His Glory. For relationship. For so many things we cannot begin to fathom. One day we will have the opportunity to ask Him! We are His treasure and we have to to trust that He knows what is best for our lives.

Heavenly trust in God may mean that we don’t always get what we want when we want it. We may suffer and have trials of many kinds. But trust is not easy. No where is it written anything different. What it written is a beautiful scripture that took on new meaning for me today in this challenge which sparked me to write this post…

“We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” Ephesians 2:10 (NIV).

I hope that for you trust takes on a new meaning as it did for me!

Day 11 “Off The Grid” Challenge Church on Fire (Harrison, Ohio)

Text OTG to 513-268-0756 to join the Off The Grid Challenge or you can visit their blog at http://www.mycfm.org/blog