Today I am at home with a cold.  It attacked quickly and has confined me to my recliner, covered in a cozy throw made by Mom.  (I stole it from Joshua because he is always stealing mine!)  But, I digress.  I’m home today, not of my choosing, but because I don’t want to spread my germs around.  I also would like to get rid of this malady as quickly as it arrived.  One minute I was fine, the next my throat was aching, and I was sneezing and coughing.

But enough of the details of my illness.  Let’s talk about sick days.  As a kid, I hated them.  They always manifested at absolutely the worst time.  I can’t tell you how many field trips and class parties I missed because I always managed to get sick.  As an adult, sick days are even more inconvenient.  Take today for example.  This morning was the final session of the Bible study that I’ve been attending with a friend.  The FINAL session!!  Can you sense my frustration?  My first inclination was to go anyway.  Common sense eventually won the tug of war and here I am at home.  (Coughing and sneezing my way through Beth Moore’s video was probably not my best idea.)

After messaging my friend of the situation, I settled in to work on some lessons from our study that I missed while on vacation recently.  The attached pic shows my view.  Everything I need within arms reach.  Most importantly, my Bible, my study guide, and my hot tea.  Let me just interject that, as an adult, I’ve found that God usually puts my butt on the recliner when He has better plans for me than I have for myself.  He slows me down so I can rest and sit quietly long enough to hear Him.  He’s shown me over and over again that His timing is perfect, and I might as well not argue.  (Who me? Lol…)

Anyway, God (through Beth Moore) showed me something this morning that I’d like to share with you:  Trusting God is not about getting the results I want, it’s about believing that He is good and will bring about what’s best in His time.  Did you see that?  Not what I want, but what He wants!  Not in my time, but in His time!  We all have circumstances in our lives that we want God to fix.  We pray earnestly, knowing He can fix them.  What happens when He doesn’t?  When the friend with cancer dies?  When the job doesn’t come through?  When the relationship isn’t reconciled?  What then?

I’ve learned there are two kinds of faith:  1. Faith that believes in what God can do and 2. Faith based on who God is.  The first kind of faith says “I trust God as long as He does what I ask.”  This kind of faith depends on results.  The problem with this type of faith is that we can’t see things from God’s perspective.  Isaiah 55:8-9 says that “God’s ways are higher than our ways, and His thoughts are higher than our thoughts.”  Since we can’t possibly see the bigger picture, we don’t know what is best for us or for our future. But God already knows what’s down the road and, many times, He is trying to save us from future heartache by not giving us what we think we want or need.  This type of faith is also fear-based.  We don’t trust God enough to let Him be in charge.

The second type of faith is what God desires from us.  He wants us to WANT a relationship with Him.  He wants us to TRUST Him with all our fears, all our hopes, all our dreams.  And He’s big enough to handle it all!  He loves us and He wants what’s best for us — He KNOWS what’s best for us.  And when we can fully surrender to Him and walk WITH Him in faith and trust, He will give us His dreams and His desires, and they are WAY better than anything we can fathom: “…immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine!”  I have found this to be true so many times in my life, that you’d think I’d be walking with Him in perfect trust.  But, in my humanness, I continue to chafe at His “No” or “Wait” and argue for my own way.  Lovingly, He waits and waits, until I’m ready to say “Okay, not my will but Yours be done.”  And then, AND THEN, comes JOY!

I heard a new song on election day.  I was on my way to meet my cousin for breakfast, and I was listening to Word.FM.  An unfamiliar song came on and as I listened I couldn’t help but smile at God’s timing.  I so needed to hear this song right then, at that very moment.  Angst over that day’s election was overwhelming.  But the chorus struck at the heart of the matter:  “How could I make you so small, When you’re the one who holds it all, When did I forget that you’ve always been the King of the world?” (from King of the World by Natalie Grant)  How DID I forget?  He is the King and He IS in CONTROL!  I don’t have to be afraid of what tomorrow brings.  All I have to do is trust Him and rest in His loving arms.  Yes, even today when I’m sick — especially today when I’m sick — He wants me to rest and just trust Him — THE KING OF THE WORLD!