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Why Mexico has me terrified and thrilled all at once.
There are two different ways that we can trust God, and most of us honestly suck at one of them.
A few weeks ago the student ministry was going through a series called ReSolution and we talked through how to start the school year really well. One main theme that kept cropping up was the need to trust God. If we want to follow God's will for our lives and the plan He has for us, then we'll need to trust Him. This is when a student asked a question that I wasn't prepared for. She said, "How do I trust God?"
It was a moment that I wasn't prepared for and I felt like using the word in the definition. Saying something stupid and pithy like, "You just TRUST Him. Ya know?" With a quick prayer, I felt like God let me stumble on something really insightful. There are two forms of trusting God.
THE FIRST IS EXPERIENTIAL TRUST
Experiential trust is where we trust God because we've seen Him take care of us before. We've experienced who He is and what He can do and because of this, we're willing to trust Him with something that's coming up. "Do it again" by Elevation Worship captures this idea so well. "I believe you'll do it AGAIN" (actual words are “I’ve seen You move. You move the mountains, and I believe I’ll see you do it again.”)
In my life, I've gained experiential trust in God with my budget. There have been so many instances where I figured up the budget for the month, and we were not going to have enough money for all of our expenses. Then, as the month progresses I watch us get closer to being out of the red, and eventually we end up even having a little bit of money that we can save. It was so obviously God that impacted my budget and caused so many little miracles that we didn't even notice.
These repeated experiences have shown me that God will provide. I’ve grown in a quiet, comforting trust with Him. This is where most of us will get comfortable with God, and we won't push our trust in Him any further. We grow to a point where we feel that "I trust God" and then we stop.
It’s true, there is a trust, but it's stagnant and it's not being pushed any further. That's why we need the second form of trust, the kind of trust that God really calls us to and wants from us.
THE SECOND IS BLIND, STUPID TRUST
This is the trust that toddlers have in their parents. The best example I have of this is in my nephew who was nearly two at the time. He was standing on his mother's lap, facing her, and suddenly, with no warning, pushed his head violently backward and almost began free-falling towards the floor. My sister-in-law quickly grabbed hold of him and caught him, successfully avoiding the landing that would have been cushioned only by his skull. At this; he began laughing with deep, belly rolling type laughs. He had a blind trust that his mother would catch him. There was no previous experience of this, just a blind, stupid trust that he would be okay.
This is where God wants us. He wants us to never get comfortable with His care and with our levels of trust in Him. For me, this is a lesson that I'm learning every day.
I have never lead a mission trip. I've been on a couple and had great times. I've also never lead an international mission trip. In one week, we are taking eight high school students on a week-long mission trip to Hermosillo, Mexico. I'm terrified, I've never lead a trip like this, and I don't even speak Spanish. I know exactly enough Spanish to tell people, "I know only a little Spanish," and I probably say it wrong. This is a time of me having to trust God, and it's in a way that I've never experienced before. I'm scared in so many ways, I feel like I'm living days on end in that split moment where my head has tilted back and I'm beginning to fall. There's fear that God's hands may not reach out and grab me, there's exhilaration about the fall itself, and there's a joy in my faith that God will grab hold of me.
I'm taking a leap into a blind and stupid trust in God. I know He's good, just like you know. This is a time where I can have my actions prove that to both myself and the people around me.
If you want to experience God better, push yourself to take a leap. Tilt your head back, begin to fall, and put yourself in situations where you're outside of your comfort zone. Go somewhere that you've never been before and force yourself to rely on God to carry you through.