"Oh be careful little heart...
...whom you trust.
oh be careful little heart whom you trust.
For the Father up above, is looking down in love,
so be careful little heart whom you trust."
The other night I opened my window and stared out at the inky sky. The air was crispy but it had stopped snowing. Those familiar tears came unbidden as I remembered all the other nights I stared out this window. Searching the same sky for some reason to keep going. It struck me that it's been exactly one year. One year since depression. Since self harm. Since anxiety. Since my messed up miserable existence. One year of Grace.
I'm not a huge fan of New Year's resolutions. About middle of January, if you are very quiet, you can hear thousands of resolutions being broken. The cycle has repeated itself for decades. But one thing I do is ask God for one goal to work on that year. (By "goal" I simply mean an area to grow in and learn lessons from.) The goal for 2019 was "To Live Without Fear." He took me seriously and taught me some things about fear.
Now, disclaimer, I'm still deathly frightened of snakes and large spiders. I'm still afraid of being in the dark by myself. And I still occasionally jump out of my skin when someone unexpectedly says "boo" in a loud voice. But it was a different kind of fear I was taken though, and here are my conclusions to the matter.
For the sake of making things less complicated, I will talk not so much of living without fear, but more of how I learned to trust, which is ultimately the outcome of living without fear.
First of all, and I simply cannot emphasize this enough, to live without fear, you have to have a deeply rooted trust in God. And that is easy to agree to in passing, and much harder to believe with your whole heart. Before you can go anywhere, you have to believe with everything you are, that God is completely trustworthy. He is all powerful, all knowing, and has every single thing worked out for your good because he loves you. If you don't believe that, and walk in that, you will never be able to trust anyone or anything else. Someone once told me "He is completely trustworthy with all your greatest dreams." You have to trust Him enough to hand over control. When we go through high water, control responds by getting out of the water and into a dry safe place, and then making sure that place always remains dry and safe. But trusting Jesus completely, means that sometimes the high water remains high and watery. But instead of fearing it, there is peace. You trust that the one who controls the depth won't let it go over your head. And you simply take one step at a time even if it doesn't make sense.
Once that is in place, something cool starts happening.
You start trusting people.
That was a big one for me. I believed I had every right to mistrust people. I realized God had my best in mind, and that every circumstance, every person, and every situation was there for my good. Not my destruction. I trusted him enough that I was able to open myself up to other people. I knew full well that trusting people was different than trusting God. God will never fail you. People will. God will never misuse you. People will. But if you trust God, the God who will never fail you, you can trust the people he brings into your life are there for your good, not destruction. And that changes everything.
People no longer scared me. Authority no longer scared me. I found myself seeking out authority and mentorship. I found myself drawn to people instead of the old "I must hide." It was so much easier to pour into people and relationships and even hard situations were less complicated, because I had that peace the song talks about. The kind that you can't explain. I'm am fully convinced it came from learning to trust my Jesus fully. Learning to trust the people around me. And learning to be ok with not having control.
Now one year later, I'm here with my nose tingling from the air, and one of those uncontrollable-just-for-the-fun-of-it-violent shivers down my back, and the words of a song come to mind.
"Standing on this mountain top
Looking just how far we've come
knowing that for every step
you were with us
Kneeling on this battle ground
seeing just how much you've done
knowing every victory
was your power in us,
scars and struggles on the way
but with JOY our hearts can say
Never once did we ever walk alone
never once did you leave us on our own
you are faithful, God, you are faithful."
There are still so many things in life that my brain tells me I must freak out about. There are so many moments when I fight for control. But I'm ever so slowly learning to believe and live with my whole heart; Jesus is completely trustworthy with my greatest dreams. He is completely trustworthy with every aspect of life. And it's because of Him that I am able to put myself on the line, and live free of control.
So should we be careful little heart whom we trust when the Father up above is looking down in love? I'm willing to say that the ones the loving Father asks us to trust are the ones we need to trust with no questions. Because he is completely trustworthy of our greatest dreams. And never once will we walk alone.
oh be careful little heart whom you trust.
For the Father up above, is looking down in love,
so be careful little heart whom you trust."
The other night I opened my window and stared out at the inky sky. The air was crispy but it had stopped snowing. Those familiar tears came unbidden as I remembered all the other nights I stared out this window. Searching the same sky for some reason to keep going. It struck me that it's been exactly one year. One year since depression. Since self harm. Since anxiety. Since my messed up miserable existence. One year of Grace.
I'm not a huge fan of New Year's resolutions. About middle of January, if you are very quiet, you can hear thousands of resolutions being broken. The cycle has repeated itself for decades. But one thing I do is ask God for one goal to work on that year. (By "goal" I simply mean an area to grow in and learn lessons from.) The goal for 2019 was "To Live Without Fear." He took me seriously and taught me some things about fear.
Now, disclaimer, I'm still deathly frightened of snakes and large spiders. I'm still afraid of being in the dark by myself. And I still occasionally jump out of my skin when someone unexpectedly says "boo" in a loud voice. But it was a different kind of fear I was taken though, and here are my conclusions to the matter.
For the sake of making things less complicated, I will talk not so much of living without fear, but more of how I learned to trust, which is ultimately the outcome of living without fear.
First of all, and I simply cannot emphasize this enough, to live without fear, you have to have a deeply rooted trust in God. And that is easy to agree to in passing, and much harder to believe with your whole heart. Before you can go anywhere, you have to believe with everything you are, that God is completely trustworthy. He is all powerful, all knowing, and has every single thing worked out for your good because he loves you. If you don't believe that, and walk in that, you will never be able to trust anyone or anything else. Someone once told me "He is completely trustworthy with all your greatest dreams." You have to trust Him enough to hand over control. When we go through high water, control responds by getting out of the water and into a dry safe place, and then making sure that place always remains dry and safe. But trusting Jesus completely, means that sometimes the high water remains high and watery. But instead of fearing it, there is peace. You trust that the one who controls the depth won't let it go over your head. And you simply take one step at a time even if it doesn't make sense.
Once that is in place, something cool starts happening.
You start trusting people.
That was a big one for me. I believed I had every right to mistrust people. I realized God had my best in mind, and that every circumstance, every person, and every situation was there for my good. Not my destruction. I trusted him enough that I was able to open myself up to other people. I knew full well that trusting people was different than trusting God. God will never fail you. People will. God will never misuse you. People will. But if you trust God, the God who will never fail you, you can trust the people he brings into your life are there for your good, not destruction. And that changes everything.
People no longer scared me. Authority no longer scared me. I found myself seeking out authority and mentorship. I found myself drawn to people instead of the old "I must hide." It was so much easier to pour into people and relationships and even hard situations were less complicated, because I had that peace the song talks about. The kind that you can't explain. I'm am fully convinced it came from learning to trust my Jesus fully. Learning to trust the people around me. And learning to be ok with not having control.
Now one year later, I'm here with my nose tingling from the air, and one of those uncontrollable-just-for-the-fun-of-it-violent shivers down my back, and the words of a song come to mind.
Looking just how far we've come
knowing that for every step
you were with us
Kneeling on this battle ground
seeing just how much you've done
knowing every victory
was your power in us,
scars and struggles on the way
but with JOY our hearts can say
Never once did we ever walk alone
never once did you leave us on our own
you are faithful, God, you are faithful."
There are still so many things in life that my brain tells me I must freak out about. There are so many moments when I fight for control. But I'm ever so slowly learning to believe and live with my whole heart; Jesus is completely trustworthy with my greatest dreams. He is completely trustworthy with every aspect of life. And it's because of Him that I am able to put myself on the line, and live free of control.
So should we be careful little heart whom we trust when the Father up above is looking down in love? I'm willing to say that the ones the loving Father asks us to trust are the ones we need to trust with no questions. Because he is completely trustworthy of our greatest dreams. And never once will we walk alone.
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