Psalm 62:8 “Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us.” Today's episode talks about how we can trust the Lord with our feelings. It is OK to tell the Lord how we feel even if those feelings aren't good. We can yell, scream and cry out to the Lord. He won't love us any less just because we are upset with him. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Pour Out Your Hearts To Him
Psalm 62:8 “Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us.”
I was talking with someone the other day and they are really struggling. They are struggling because their child is making bad choices and there isn’t anything they can do to stop it. I asked how she was doing and she said she trusts 100% in the Lord and that He is working in all of this and at the same time, she is crying out to the Lord asking why her child has to go through this. I wanted to share this with all of you because I want you to know you are not alone. I also want you to know it is ok to have two competing feelings. You can be happy about something and also concerned at how it will all work out. You can be happy you just found out you were pregnant, and also feel worried that you will have another mouth to feed. You can be sad your loved one passed away and grateful they aren’t in pain anymore.
When it comes to trusting the Lord, I think we have expectations that are unrealistic. We tend to think if we trust the Lord, we won’t ever have to struggle again. All of our needs will be met and life will be great. I can tell you from experience, this isn’t the case. God never said we wouldn’t struggle. Moses trusted God and yet the Israelites struggled. Moses trusted God would do as He said and yet, I am sure there were times when he was sweating it out waiting for God to answer the prayers. God will take care of our needs and He will provide. However, it is not always in our timing and that can cause some stress.
My parents are great at trusting the Lord. If they didn’t have something they needed they asked the Lord and He provided it. However, that doesn’t mean they never worried about anything. I am one of 11 children, so as you can imagine, there was never enough money to go around. Sometimes, we had more bills than we had money. Sometimes God would answer prayers by providing extra money is some miraculous way, like when my grandparents would send unexpected money. Other times God would provide food from neighbors so we didn’t have to spend money on food and could put that money towards the bills. However, sometimes God would provide by softening the heart of the person my mom called at the electric or heating company and they would let us pay a smaller amount this month or they would agree to wait one more month before shutting the electric or heat off. God always came through, just not always in the ways we would have chosen.
You can trust the Lord and also be mad, sad, or upset with Him at the same time. You can trust that things will work out in the end, or that He will use all this bad for good and also be upset you had to go through the bad. My friend can trust that things will work out for her son and also be really sad her son has to go through all of this. She can know God is looking out for Him and still be frustrated that God didn’t protect Him from all of this. I think the not knowing why is the hardest part. If we could skip ahead to the end of the story and know the why of what we are going through, I bet things would be easier to endure. If we knew how God was going to use the hard things for His good, if we understood the why, it might make it easier to make it though the hard times. For instance, if I knew my son was going to get in trouble with the law, have to spend time in jail, but ultimately he would use that experience to save countless other kids from he same fate, I might find it easier to make it through the time he was in jail.
My friend said something the other day and I think it's amazing she can look at it like that when she is hurting so much. She said this is just a blip in her son’s life. It is so true and yet, when we are living through it, we feel as though it is an eternity. When our kids are teenagers they make mistakes. Some teens really struggle, most teens struggle I think. When they are struggling to fit in and to make it through middle school and high school we worry about them. We tell them this time won’t last forever and yet it feels like it might. We as parents worry about their future and what impact these years will have on their future. We worry about them being successful and to be honest sometimes we worry about them being alive in the future. If your kids are making bad choices you may worry they will harm themselves intentionally or unintentionally.
We need to keep going back to God. This verse says, “Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us.” I think most of us are working on the trust in him at all times part of this verse. We are probably pretty good at trusting Him with a few things, and are still working on the rest of the things. I think God understands and He is willing to wait for us. The thing I think we all don’t realize is we can’t manufacture trust in God ourselves. This comes from God. If we want to trust God more we need to ask Him to help us learn to trust more. The next line tells us to pour out of heart before Him. I think many of us are afraid to do this. We are afraid to yell at God, or be sad or mad at God. We feel angry with Him, but we don’t say it because we feel it is wrong to be upset, mad or sad at God.
He is telling us right here in this verse to pour out our hearts to Him. God already knows what is in your heart. There is no way of hiding it. However, when you pour it out to God, when you say it out loud and release all those feelings God can start healing you. He can start to work on the pain and hurt you feel. God is strong. He can take whatever it is you want to say to Him. God longs to have a close and intimate relationship with you. Think of those you have close relationships with. Would you be as close as you are if you couldn’t share you real feelings with them? If you lied to them and always told them everything was ok, going good, even when it wasn’t would they still want to be your friend? Be honest with God. Tell Him how you feel. Yell, cry, scream, whatever it is you need to do to let God into your heart.
The last line says God is a refuge for us. Refuge means providing shelter from pursuit, danger, or trouble. God provides us a shelter, a safe place, where we can bring Him all we have. We don’t have to be afraid of our feelings, God is available to listen to them and to help us figure them out. God is there for us through everything. He is someone we can always count on, even if others have let us down. My hope for each one of you listening is that you feel comfortable pouring your heart out to the Lord. I hope you trust Him enough to yell and scream when you feel you need to and that you know He will still love you the same after you do. He might even love you more, if that’s possible. Or, maybe not love you more, but you may feel closer to Him afterwards. The more you open up to God the closer you will feel to Him. Trust He can take whatever you have to say to Him.
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, we love you and we want to trust you, please help us. We want to know you are there for us and that you will love us just as much if we cry out when we don’t understand. Help us to have faith your plan is better than our plan. Help us to trust even when we don’t know what the plan is. Help us to be honest with you about how we are feeling. We love you Lord, you are amazing. You are the Messiah, You are the Lord, You are the Resurrection and the Life. We are so grateful for all you do for us. We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus holy name, Amen!
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I look forward to seeing you tomorrow. Have a blessed day.