I Trust You, But...

Trusting God (the concept of "surrender," for those of you who speak Christian-ese) has always been my biggest struggle.

To be sure, I've had plenty of sin in my life. But having grown up in a conservative Christian home, what not to do was always the easy part to figure out-- it was everything I knew I'd get in trouble for. But what to do, as a dedicated follower of Christ, was never quite as clear. (It also contradicts my nature, as I am quite a lazy person.)

Surrendering our lives to God was one of the things that would come up occasionally in sermons I had listened to, and it was always a topic that mystified me. It wasn't something that could be easily measured, like whether or not I had quiet time every day or even how often my thoughts would wander while I was singing worship songs. They could teach me the benefits of surrendering things to God, like the peace that comes as a result of not having to worry. But what does one actually do? I quickly discovered that simply saying, "God, I surrender my life to You" doesn't really work.

Come to find out, of course, that learning to trust God is a long process. And we could almost always learn to trust Him more deeply.

I'll use my singleness as an example. In high school, I didn't trust God with it at all. Sometimes, I refused even to pray about it, fearing that He wouldn't want me to have a boyfriend. I maneuvered myself as best I could to grab the attention of the boy I liked. When it didn't work, I blamed God and got angry.

In college, I made more of an effort to surrender my dating life (or lack thereof) to Him. I gave up on boys completely, telling myself that God could work miracles, and any guy who was worth my time would pursue me instead of the other way around. While both of those things might have been true, I still hadn't learned how to be truly content while I was waiting. I was proving to myself that I could live without having a guy to obsess over, which was great, but deep down I still harbored quite a bit of resentment against God for not bringing me my knight in shining armor.

More recently, God has been teaching me how to find my satisfaction in Him. I still don't completely understand how to make that work, but it involves things like finding my identity in Christ, seeing myself as His bride until He sends me an earthly husband, and realizing that He loves me and accepts me and wants me to accept myself. That, too, is a learning process.

As far as my relationship status goes, it still pains me that no guy has ever asked me out on a date. And I figured that since there was nothing wrong, per se, with getting upset about it once in a while, I would just continue to do so until I got my first boyfriend. My prayers go a lot like this:

"Lord, I lay my desire for a husband on Your altar. I trust You with my future spouse, knowing that You have what's best for me. I want to wait until You bring the right person into my life... But God, I'm really really REALLY lonely in the meantime and I would appreciate it SO MUCH if You'd bring him just a little faster!!! Maybe tomorrow??... if it is Your will, of course. Amen."

There's nothing wrong with asking Him for a relationship, or asking Him to bring it faster. Sometimes He will answer that prayer. But if He doesn't, there must be some reason, maybe one we won't be able to see. In my case, I think He's asking more of me. To stop saying, "I trust You, but."

Surrendering to God is taking every thought captive. And guess what? Doing so is much more for our benefit than for His. Dwelling on the things we don't have disrupts the peace and satisfaction we find in God. And let's be honest... it hurts!

Today, for the first time, I closed my eyes and said, "I trust You," without adding any qualifiers. The "but's" quickly came to mind, of course, but I held them at bay. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. I wasn't being dishonest with God, either, or feeling like I was just pretending... For that moment, at least, I was letting it be true, not allowing myself to think about or even feel discontentment. It took all my powers of concentration, but it gave me a sense of peace I'd like to have all the time.

I think that peace could be mine, with a little more practice.

Okay, probably a lot more practice.