Caught trusting god

An unemployed friend of mine rearranged her life and duties and drove from Philadelphia to Kentucky to spend two weeks with a friend in need. On the 12-hour ride back, she was tempted by the devil to fear, because although she had felt called by God to drop everything to render that fortnight’s assistance, it was 14 days she could have spent looking for a job. But she did not end up fretting all the way through Kentucky, Ohio, and Pennsylvania.

She told me that too many times in her Christian life she had doubted God in a particular scary matter, and then God had come through in the nick of time for her aid and rescue. But because she had doubted, she had neither the satisfaction nor the blessing of having trusted God in the first place. This time, on the road back home from the Midwest, my friend was determined to trust God in the first place, rather than to merely see His faithfulness on the flip side and be ashamed of having missed an opportunity to show Him she trusts Him. And it is a Bible certainty that God is rooting for us to show Him our faith, and His purpose and desire are to bless us every time He catches us believing Him. Have you been caught trusting God recently?

“And the Spirit said for me to go with them, doubting nothing …” (Acts 11:12).

“And [Jesus] said to them, ‘Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?’” (Luke 24:38)

“… [Jesus] said to the ruler of the synagogue, ‘Do not be afraid; only believe’” (Mark 5:36).

As it turned out, when my friend arrived back in Pennsylvania, there were three job offers waiting for her. Not only that, but they were jobs that she had not even sought or applied for. After prayerful consideration, she declined the two offers in our home state and accepted the one in Florida, where she is this very moment. And as one act of faith sits us pretty for the next one, I know that she is trusting God with this new employment on the Gulf Coast. The way she put it to me is this: “I don’t ever again want to be caught not trusting God.”