Trust and Obey

Trust. -noun.
1. reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety, etc., of a person or thing; confidence.
2. confident expectation of something; hope.

I remember being a teenager and consciously having to learn to trust God for the first time. I say consciously because although I am certain of times when I trusted Him as a child, this was the first time that I truly felt the weight of hardship in my life. That period of time was the first time I remember thinking that life is hard and I feel utterly helpless to change anything about it. At that time I learned to trust God. There was absolutely no one else to run to, so He was my Refuge. After He proved Himself faithful yet again, I learned to trust Him. And He had so satisfied my soul that I thought I'd be able to trust Him always in everything.
Now I look back at the naivete of that 15 year old and smile. Had I been told at that point that I would constantly need to learn and re-learn to trust the Lord, I probably would've been skeptical. I was so sure that I had learned the lesson well. And I had. But as life kept going, each year had different trials, different decisions, different obstacles in which I had to learn to trust the Lord over and over again.
In the beginning I would grow completely frustrated with myself. "Olga," I would think to myself, " you have already learned this lesson! Why do you have such a hard time trusting your Creator?" Now I look back at the naivete of those questions and smile. Yes, at the time, they were necessary questions to ask. However, now with each year I become more and more acutely aware of my own weakness, my utter depravity, and with it comes an acceptance of the fact that yes, trusting will always be a struggle (although it truly does get easier), but also a deeper appreciation for God's grace and mercy. And love for Him grows out of that awareness and appreciation.

Having said all of that, for a little more than half a year, I had been constantly reminding myself to trust God, to trust His plans for my life. I kept trying to fight anxiety in my life with trust. And that is a good thing. But after having a long season of struggle in the area of trust, I came to realize that although God wanted me to trust Him, He wasn't asking that of me at the time. At that time he was calling me to something else: obedience.
Obey. -verb
1. to comply with or follow the commands, restricitions, wishes, or instructions of;
Wow. Here I was struggling for so long with trusting God's plan for my life, when in reality God wanted me to obey Him! Why did that seem so much harder than trusting? I mean, I knew all of the Scripture references that talked about obedience (i.e. "If you love me, you will obey My commandments John 14:15, and countless others that relay the importance of obedience..) yet, I was reluctant to obey. I didn't think I was disobedient. I was just reluctant to take any steps or make any decisions. (although news flash: postponing obedience is really just disobedience). There came a moment of revelation recently when I finally admitted to myself that I am a coward. That was truly the issue. Obeying God is often scary! No wonder God says to Joshua after he takes over for Moses to "Be Strong and Courageous" over and over again! Have any of you noticed how often that phrase is written in the book of Joshua? God was clearly trying to make a statement. Because obeying God does take courage! It is usually completely the opposite of what the world (and often even other Christians) are telling us! And that's also what He was teaching me. Be strong and courageous. Obey Him. It doesn't matter what anyone else says. Just take the step of faith to Obey, and Trust that He will work all things together in that magnificent way that only He can.... wait trust? Yes. I guess it wasn't just a lesson of obedience after all. It seems that Trust and Obedience do go hand in hand. And to finish off this blog, I would like to post the lyrics to an old favorite hymn. I was originally planning on just posting a few excerpts, but I realized that all of the words were so good, so full of rich theological truth, that I had to post it all.
Enjoy.

Trust and Obey

When we walk with the Lord
In the light of His Word,
What a glory He sheds on our way!
While we do his good will,
He abides with us still,
And with all who will trust and obey.

Trust and obey, for there's no other way
to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.

Not a burden we bare,
Not a sorrow we share,
But our toil He doth richly repay;
Not a grief or a loss,
Not a frown or a cross,
But is blest if we trust and obey.

But we never can prove
The delights of His love
Until all on the altar we lay;
For the favor He shows,
For the joy He bestows,
Are for them who will trust and obey.

Then in fellowship sweet,
We will sit at His feet,
Or we'll walk by His side in the way;
What He says we will do,
Where He sends we will go;
Never fear, only trust and obey.

<3