Easier to ask forgiveness than permission…

It is amazing the new perspective I have on my relationship with God as my first child has grown into a full-fledged, personality-filled, stubborn-as-all-get-out, toddler.  Experiencing him starting to become the person God created him to be and helping mold him and teach him right and wrong has launched me into a new understanding of the love, joy, frustration, and sometimes anger that our Father God feels towards us as he molds us into who He created us to be.

Not long ago, I was sitting at the kitchen table, when Tyler approached me pointing at a toy on the table, saying “Have? Have? Have?”   He wanted to know if he was allowed to have the toy…that was his… that he had put there…that he has never been denied before.  My immediate reaction was, “Of course, Baby, you didn’t have to ask! Just take it.”  I was surprised that he asked so sweetly when in any other case, when it was something he thought he might not be granted, he would go for the quick steal and run like mad maneuver. 

I couldn’t ignore the tug on my heart that God was revealing something to me about this.  Why is it that I don’t hesitate to ask God first in areas that I am 100% sure he is going to side with my intended plan of action, but when I’m not so sure if I am going to like the answer, I pull my own sneak attack and go ahead and do what I want before I find out what God has to say.

There are over 125 uses of the word ‘trust’ in the Bible, and I know why: trust is hard.   In a study our staff is doing together right now, Andy Stanley told us that we don’t trust for one, or both, of two reasons:  one, we know how much we have fallen short or are untrustworthy, and two, we have experienced so much failure from others.  Fortunately we can’t even begin to compare our human nature with that of God’s.  We can stand firm in scripture when it says in Psalm 9:10, “Those who know your name will trust in you, for you, LORD, have never forsaken those who seek you.”  And again in Psalm 22:5, “They cried to you and were saved; in you they trusted and were not disappointed.”

            We could be here for years if I cited every Biblical example of God’s trustworthiness.  But we have to own it, live it, breathe it.  We have to know that He has our best interest at heart.  He has a plan that I can rest easy in.  I don’t have to usurp His authority to make things happen to achieve my desires.  If I seek Him first and trust him enough to be obedient, I won’t have to ask forgiveness later through tears on my knees, though I will probably still be in the same posture praising him through tears of joy and thankfulness because He will never disappoint!

Lord, help me to place my trust in your capable hands.  Teach me to call on your name when I have desires for my life, rather than take the initiative and try to do Your work for You.  I praise You that You are the author of all trust.  I choose to walk in the freedom and victory that comes from releasing my desires and goals fully to you, knowing that you never disappoint.  Help me grow my faith! 

-Laura "Girly" Gordy