Of Trust

I've mentioned before: I tend to envision a God of loopholes. Or, rather, lately, it's a fear that I'm being set up.

Life is going beautifully at the moment. I'm learning to be aware of life's little blessings - expressing gratitude in all moments. And yet, every direction which I turn tends to set me face-to-face with a lesson on the "hard gratitude", as Ann Voskamp calls it, the giving of thanks in the most difficult of life's circumstances - those precious minutes when it is nearly impossible to breathe, let alone breathe gratitude.

I'm hearing this lesson, masked behind various words, but always the same meaning, multiple times a day. And I hold my breath in fear - perhaps I am being reminded because this is a concept to which I will find myself clinging in coming days, weeks or months.

I tend to believe, somewhere deep inside, behind the locked doors of my soul, the ones I fear to even admit exist, that God is somehow waiting on his Heavenly throne with the shoe in his hand, dangling, waiting to let it fall simply to see how closely I'll hold to all I say I believe.

Is this really the God I worship? The one in my mind, licking His lips, cackling to Himself in anticipation of my fall?

Or could it be, more likely, that He knows what I do not: though the trial may be around the bend, I needn't fear, knowing all things work together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28). More importantly, I can trust that though I may not understand this higher purpose, the Creator of the Heavens and the Earth and my very lungs which draw breath knows the outcome and His plan, painful as it may be is always greater than any design my feeble human mind can develop.

Trust.

This is what I shall choose. Trust, joy, and gratitude. Always gratitude.