Trusting (Mirror book study post 2)

​Last week’s post was about the theme of waiting well found in Mirror (and in the lovely character development bits of my life recently). And the conclusion I drew was that in order to wait well, we need to wait expectantly and hopefully because if we’re waiting on God, we are waiting on Someone who can do BIG things.
But that can be easier said than done because waiting often involves a whole lot of nothing happening (at least, nothing we can see). So how do we manage to wait well, wait expectantly, and wait with hope when it seems like we’re just waiting for nothing? The answer to that comes down to trust.

​Trust can be a tricky thing. Especially when it involves waiting. And especially when that period of waiting gives no indication that your trust is well-founded. Let’s put it into perspective. The most trusted people in my life are my immediate family. So if I were to, for example, place myself on the side of the road to wait for a ride to somewhere I really want to be, they would be the ones I would call to get that ride. But if I happen to remain standing on the side of the road waiting for that ride for hours or even days, that trust is going to become something that plays a bit of tug-o-war with the doubts that would rise in my mind. Regardless of my deep trust in my family, it would get harder to trust them the longer I had to wait. And yet, it would be easier for me to trust them, compared to other people, because I have good reason for it.
And this is where we get to the core of what trust in the waiting period means. As Reina wrestles with the long wait to figure out Adonia’s leading in her life (along with dodging assassinations and wandering through the wilderness), she eventually comes to the conclusion that she will trust Him. Of course, this requires more than that simple decision- it requires repeated reminders in that mental battle between doubt and trust. But ultimately, she knows that she can trust Adonia because the character of Adonia has been proven trustworthy. Similarly, we can trust God while we’re waiting on Him because there is good reason for it. In fact, there are so many good reasons for it that I would never be able to list them all in this post! So instead, we’ll focus on just a couple of the ones that have stuck with me through my own waiting/trusting process.
First, we can trust God because He is inherently good. Take a few minutes to really think about it, and I can guarantee you will find a long list of ways God has been good to you. I know that I have proof of His goodness littered throughout every day of my life, even before I knew to look for it. And even before any of us existed, God was so good that He created a plan to draw us close to Him and gift us with the opportunity to be in His presence and walk with Him for all of eternity. God knew that we would not be able to achieve the perfection that standing before Him requires, but instead of accepting that separation, we were given the gift of Jesus- the perfect, sinless sacrifice who took our place to heal our relationship with God. We can trust God not because He’s kind of good, but because He is so inherently, unfathomably good that He took us, who are not good enough, and made us perfect and holy. Psalm 40:2 (ESV) says, “He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure.” God is so good that He already made a way for your salvation, defeated death and sin, and reached His hand into your mess to haul you out… He is certainly good enough to trust with your waiting.
The second reason we can trust God is because He loves us. And I know this is a sentiment that is repeated so many times, but let us not lose sight of the beauty of it just because we hear it often. The God of all creation, sovereign ruler, King of kings… He is the one who loves us in ways we can’t even understand. He is “near to all who call on Him” and “hears their cry and saves them” (Psalm 145:18-19). He is the one who speaks to a sinful, broken people and says, “you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you” (Isaiah 43:4). How priceless is this sacred love? How blessed are we that we are not expected to trust a distant, unfeeling god, but instead are able to trust the God who walks beside us and loves us through every uncertain, frightening, painful step of our waiting?
So it is with this certainty of goodness and love that both Reina and I came to the conclusion that we would exercise trust in our waiting. I won’t pretend like this suddenly made things easier. As I said before, trust in waiting often involves a tug-o-war between the doubts in your mind and foundation of your trust. But the benefit of trusting in God is that that foundation is certain. We may find ourselves waiting for longer than we want. We may find ourselves waiting until Heaven. We may find ourselves waiting on something that is outside of God’s will and is therefore never granted. But that does not make God any less trustworthy. It does not make Him any less good. It does not make Him any less loving. And that makes it possible to wait in trust, rather than in doubt or uncertainty.
I will end with the verses that reflecting on all of this led me to, verses that have now become some of my favorites: “But I will hope continually and will praise you yet more and more. My mouth will tell of your righteous acts, of your deeds of salvation all the day, for their number is past my knowledge” (Psalm 71:14-15). We are able to praise in the waiting- not because it’s easy or because we are guaranteed to get whatever we want, but because we trust the God who is good, who is loving, who has already saved us more times than we can count.