10 reasons to trust
To trust God.
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Because He has never failed me. Not once, in the entirety that is my life has He ever come close to failing me.
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Through every failure and shortcoming on my part, He has only continued to call me closer to Himself and deeper into His heart. No amount of shame and mistakes have kept me from His mercy, His love and His embrace.
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He already knows everything about me: every failure and success I’ve had or will have.. And yet He has still chosen me and decided to come close to me, to pursue me and have an intimate relationship with me. He isn’t disappointed in me – He continues to CHOOSE me. Part of Psalm 139 (MSG) says it so wonderfully, “I’m an open book to you; even from a distance, you know what I’m thinking. You know when I leave and when I get back; I’m never out of your sight. You know everything I’m going to say before I even start the first sentence. I look behind me and You’re there, then up ahead and You’re there too– Your reassuring presence, coming and going.”
To trust my leaders.
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Because my God is one of vulnerability and also a safe place, He has made those two things evident in my leaders. Whether it be through our team SQA, mentors, coaches, leaders, logistics, or people who just helped with the team while at training camp.. God’s character is so evident in each of them. In such individual ways, God has shown me pieces of His heart in each of my leaders. In doing so, making it a little easier to trust them with who I am.
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In my leaders, I have witnessed worshippers just as much as workers. They each have so much to do, and had worked so hard at helping us have a productive camp, and deep encounters with Holy Spirit. I’ve seen all of them worship, not paying attention to anyone in the room but Jesus. I think it’s easy to trust them so much already because I know that if I’m looking at them and what they’re doing, I’m also looking at Jesus. The pursuit they have of Him isn’t a show, it’s something I have gotten to see them live each day at training camp.
To trust my squad and my teammates.
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My squad scared me at first because even 22 people felt like a lot of people to trust. Yet somehow, after 10 days, I see them and I feel like I know the heart of my Jesus a little better after having encountered their friendship. They are beautiful reflections of the kindness of God, of how safe my Father is, and in turn I have been able to actually see them as safe too. I didn’t know God could create trust inside a squad like that in only 10 days.
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Because they have all been vulnerable with me. In seeing their willingness to lay out the painful or messy parts of their life, and in me laying mine out for them to see too, I think I’m starting to recognize the grace and love that comes alongside vulnerability.
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My team within the squad (who you will later be introduced to) is all girls. My first thought was drama, and wow – how quickly Jesus has flipped that assumption. They are each unique and caring and compassionate, each with a different facet of God that I need to see, and I know I can trust them because I’ve seen how they love Jesus and how they’ve told their stories to me. They are safe for me to lean into, and I have heard the Father telling me just how much I’m about to learn about trust and community through them.
To trust myself.
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I am not the lies that the enemy tries to speak into my mind. I am more than those lies; in fact, I am the total opposite of them. I have created space for my Father to come into and reign over. I have been living out a redemption story more beautiful than anything I could come up with on my own.
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Because I am His. Irrevocably, undeniably, evermore His. Soaked to my very bones in the blood of Jesus, and covered in the mercy of the King. It isn’t something I can’t be anymore because of a mistake, because of doubt, because of a lie from the enemy, because of condemnation or shame or my own pride.. No, there is nothing on heaven or on earth that can shift the reality that I am HIS. He is teaching me to trust myself because I am His and He lives in me.
This is just the start of what I’ve learned and processed from training camp. Trust is a huge issue for me, even though vulnerability has not been an issue. I tend to throw my vulnerability out there as a shield rather than legitimately trusting those around me. I have kept a surface trust with many people because of betrayal and abandonment I’ve experienced in the past and it has kept me from true community and real commitment to people. God is breaking that defense mechanism I’ve constructed around my heart, gently calling me to lean into this new community He has gifted me with. In holding back my heart from others, I’ve also held it back from Him.
I can see Him farther up the road, and as I’m trying to crawl my way into vulnerability with Him, He is sprinting towards me and diving into the messy space I’m in, grabbing hold of my hands. He lifts me up and hugs me fiercely, and hand in hand we are walking through that rubble together.
