If you know me, you know that I typically do not trust people. If given a project, I tend to handle all of it myself; that way I'm the only person responsible, good or bad, for how it turns out. I don't have to rely on anyone but me.
There is a legal term called "reliance" in contracts law. There are several elements to "reliance" but I'm just going to oversimplify it. Reliance occurs when one person depends on something another person said they would do. One person takes some action because they are relying on the other person to do what they said they would do. The remedy in court for this issue is that either the person who didn't keep their word is ordered to perform the promised action or pay whatever money you may have lost because you relied on them and they didn't come through.
This is where I have been in my relationship with God. I relied on him to heal Steve and I relied on him to do a few other things I thought were promises from a biblical perspective, but he didn't do what I relied on him to do. Since there is no higher authority, there was no way to make God preform. So, I've spent a long time mulling this issue over and over. I mean, it takes A LOT for me to trust and I knew that this whole situation was so much bigger than anything I could fix. We HAD to trust and rely on God to fix this. So then after the initial shock wore off I started trying to understand why our reliance on God didn't spur him to perform.
Christians typically live by one of two schools of thought. 1. God helps those who help themselves or 2. God is in control; there is nothing you can do. Until a year ago, I thought more along the lines of God helps those who help themselves. I'm not referring to salvation here; I'm talking about general everyday life things. I'm not so sure anymore; maybe the answer is somewhere in the middle.
All I know is I have no control over life and death. I can take all the precautions in the world to keep from having an accident and then lightening could strike me or a sink hole could swallow me. People all over the world have buried a loved one and many of these people probably asked God to protect their loved one. I also know that if God healed everyone and stopped every tragedy we would be living in heaven now. I do not understand and I do not know if I ever will. The problem I have now is that I have to trust that somehow God does care about me and my family, all the while knowing that for some reason he may allow horrible tragedy in my life. I know, I know, his thoughts are higher than our thoughts. My problem is that my thoughts cannot possibly elevate to any situation in which my husband dying and the pain I feel is in any way good for me or the world. I'm just supposed to TRUST that the ONE who could have whispered and worked it all out, didn't because somehow this is better.
I didn't say it was pretty, but that is where I am; eyes wide open. Even with my eyes wide open and feeling the pain I feel, I'm trying to TRUST HIM.
It feels like doing the trust fall with a partner who has already let me fall once.
