A Lesson in Faith

I’ve written a lot on this blog about how the Lord has been growing my faith. Well, not a LOT since this is only post #5 on my humble little beginner blog… but, you feel me. 😉

Over the past year, the concept of truly having faith in God and trusting Him with my unknowns was one that weighed heavily on my heart. It kind of snuck up on me honestly, I had always (probably self-righteously) felt like my faith in God was pretty darn strong. I’m solid, I don’t doubt that in the times I need Him to come through, He WILL. He’s gotten me through so many hard seasons, yet I still wasn’t really exercising my faith and truly trusting Him in my daily life.

Proverbs 3:5 tells us to “Trust in the Lord with all our heart(s), AND lean not on our own understanding.” 

I have always understood the concept of trusting God, or so I thought… yet I consistently find myself attempting to lean on my own understanding. The issue is that my understanding is weak, flawed, and not structurally sound enough to lean on.

My understanding fails to see the big picture that God has, and gets stuck in the crippling details. But still, I try to lean on my silly, seemingly practical, [mis]understanding.

The result of that has always been the same. Inevitably, I fall into a rhythm of stress, irritability, resentment, bitterness, and feeling stuck until I get so completely overwhelmed that I’m forced to do something about it.

Recently, God has been teaching me how to trust Him with my job and financial stability. I was raised in a hardworking middle-class family, and I’ve had a job ever since I could drive. It was drilled into me at a young age to make practical decisions for the sake of income, security, and my future. I didn’t even go to college because I already felt the pressure to make money, and I couldn’t even fathom going into debt or spending the amount needed for higher education. (I also just had no real desire to go after my one year in community college art school… ha!) I had all this creativity in me, I wanted to do art, lead worship, write, start an Etsy shop… but those things just weren’t practical in my own understanding. So, I took every office job I was offered that was a step up from the last one. None of them were a passion for me, but they were practical, reliable, and a steady paycheck. In my own understanding. 

Eventually (this past year) I started hearing from God that He wanted me to make room for margin in my life. I was drained. I was working full time, doing ministry with my husband, trying to find the time to be a good wife, friend, and a functional human, and still attempting to throw my creative passions into the mix whenever I could.

Again… I was drained. But I kept going, because… that’s just what I had to do!

In my own understanding.

I was at a women’s conference in March when God started stirring my heart towards make a change in a way I couldn’t ignore, but it wasn’t until this past December that I actually put my faith in action and started moving forward in it.

I told myself it wasn’t an option. That people would think I was lazy if I quit my full time job. That I had no reason to make a change like that when I had no children to take care of yet… I had so many reasons.

I was too worried about our finances to take the steps to find something part-time. I couldn’t see how the numbers would all match up in a way that we could still pay all our bills… so I stayed in my stressed out, overwhelmed state, complaining, stressing…and waiting for God to do something while remaining stuck and immovable in my stubborn own understanding. I didn’t realize that He had already given me the answer. I just needed to act on it. I needed to start moving my faithless feet.

I finally reached a point in December, where I was so frustrated with my current job that I couldn’t take it anymore. I called my husband and told him I felt like God was telling me to leave it without anything else lined up, and that I just felt that I was supposed to trust God and start 2018 out differently.

My husband, being the wise and honest man he is, told me that idea terrified him a little, but that we should fast and pray the rest of the day about it and see what happened.

After that day we had decided that yes, somehow I was going to leave my full time job. AND SOON.

We weren’t sure of any of the details. We were sure of the fears and the obstacles… we would be making less money, I had nothing lined up, I was working from home and we only had one vehicle… etc..

But we felt peace in moving forward. Prayed. And made the decision to trust God beyond our own understanding.

THE VERY NEXT DAY (I kid you not) I was contacted about a virtual assistant position that allowed me to continue working from home, part-time, and with the flexibility of my own schedule AND allowed us to remain financially stable. A few phone conversations later, I turned in my two weeks, and my last day of my full time job was December 29th.

WHAT.

AGAIN. WHY do I ever believe the lie that my God will not come through?!

I share this story not to brag, but to give glory to God and also to show an example of what happens when we truly start to walk out our faith! This is a lesson in faith that I will have to continuously learn, and have no way attained it yet, but I’m so thankful for a God who works behind the scenes in ways we don’t see coming, to bless us and show His faithfulness.

We do not know what’s best for us, only God does. It’s about time we trust Him, and take steps of faith even when they may not make sense to us or those around us.

HIS WAYS ARE NOT OUR WAYS (Isaiah 55:8) so why do we try to wait until what He is telling us to do aligns with our simple human understanding?

If God is telling you to move. Make the move.

I promise you, he will work out all the details beyond your understanding.

Love, Alisha