The Unknown and the Known: Trusting the Lord Through Every Season

In my last post I briefly mentioned that my family and I are going to be moving to a different city, in now, just a few days time.  My husband and I decided a while ago that it's time for him to make the move from active duty to reserve service.  And while this is such an exciting new chapter for us I started to face a ton of anxiety surrounding this decision.  Both my husband and I joined the Army when we were 18 and so even though I got out three years ago, for eight whole years the Army is all we have really known.  Every two weeks the paycheck comes, every year a raise comes, every year brings four weeks of paid time off, every doctors appointment, every trip to the ER, every dentist appointment, covered.  Being a military family most certainly has it's challenges but there is also a lot of comfort found within it, comfort that we have grown accustomed to.

Now I have a confession.

I wouldn't say this is true in every aspect of my life but I believe in a lot of ways, especially financially, over the past eight years I have looked to the Army as my comfort and not to the Lord.  The reason I think this conviction has came up is due to the anxiety that I was starting to feel.

Here's the thing.  I think that we can easily talk ourselves into the fact that 'anxiety is just part of life' and because of that simple fact we can excuse it.  It's true, with life will come anxiety but how we deal with it is what matters.  So when I started to feel anxious about transitioning into another chapter of life I failed to look to the Lord.  I failed to credit him for all of things the Army has done for us over the years.  I failed to trust.  Sometimes I think that God takes us out of our comfort zone in order to shake us a little, otherwise we tend to get complacent and I think for us, this is one of those times.

Being a little bit shook can get scary because the reality is that we were not created for this world.  We were created for the garden, to walk with God in the cool of the morning.  To rely on Him for every single need.  To live along side Him in a paradise free of any looming threat.  This is why there's this kind of void that we feel as humans when we fail to trust in Him.  Whether we are conscious about it or not we have a desperate, all consuming need for God. When heaven and earth split God's original design was no longer our reality.  Now there's the unknown and with it, fear and anxiety.

So what do we do with the unknown?  We look to the known.

There are going to be times in your life when you have absolutely no idea what's coming next.  I'll just tell you that for us we are taking a pay cut, leaving a church family that we dearly love, and moving to a completely new city that we have literally been to once.  And we are doing it in the dead of winter.  I don't know about you but I would far better prefer to look for a new home when there are flowers blooming, not when everything is covered with snow.  See?  It's a comfort thing.

It's been a stretch for me because I love the illusion of control but I have really been trying to use this as an opportunity to trust the Lord in strengthening my faith because honestly I already know everything I need to know and the rest is not up to me.  I may not know where we are going to live in a year or how much money we are going to make but I know that my Father will provide for us.

Jesus talks about this in his first sermon (Matthew 6:25-34).  Something that Jesus says that really sticks out to me is this:  "For your heavenly Father knows that you need them."  We were created to "need" and who understands this more than our creator?  It's so simple!

That in His splendor he created us and in His mercy and great love He cares for us.

I want to be bold in my faith, I want to enter into uncharted territory knowing that whatever the Lord has in store for me is good, that He will fulfill every need, and that he will fully equip me to handle what lies before me.

Another thing that I think is so important to remember and it's something that I still struggle with, is realizing that because of what Jesus did for us, God is not distant only available after a long journey.  He is a God who remains near and it's really up to us to reach out towards his ever extended hand.  It's important to declare His presence and to receive it because it keeps us in tune with his character, his voice, and his care.

I really just want to encourage you today.  No matter what season you are going through right now to step out in faith and just let the Lord steal away your anxiety to be replaced with a peace that surpasses all understanding.  Remember that faith is not about seeing but it's believing what cannot be seen and trusting that it will come to fruition in His timing (Hebrews 11:1).


It's the processing refinement.

Surrender everything to the Lord and watch Him move mountains.  The choice is yours, really.

He is patiently waiting.





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