I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; Be strong and let your heart take courage; Yes, wait for the Lord.
Psalm 27:13-14 NASB
Knowing God’s peace in trials comes from trusting and waiting. Trusting is leaning on God. Specifically, trusting is leaning on God during a challenging season in our life, or in a difficult relationship. It is believing in His sovereignty over your marriage. In this verse, we see that trusting means confidently expecting that at the right time, God will act, and we will see it. It will happen. When we speak those words in confidence, when we trust that it will happen despite what we see in front of us, a peace that surpasses all understanding washes over us.
Coupled with trusting, is waiting. Waiting is accepting God’s timing, knowing that we go through seasons of hardship to refine us. There is so much for us in the waiting. Sometimes, we may be placed in a difficult place or challenging relationship because it is only through the waiting that we can truly be chastened. God will take you to places you never intended to go in order to produce in you what you could not achieve on your own.
Here’s a truth I’ve learned in my life about trials. The waiting is where we struggle the most—the waiting IS our trial. We struggle with the unknown in our waiting—our minds go to dark places as we imagine the worst. People often say, “If I just knew what was going to happen…if I just knew how things were going to turn out, I’d be fine.” It’s the waiting and the wondering that’s the hard part. It’s in the waiting that we bail on our difficult relationships, it’s in the waiting that we give up hope, it’s in the waiting that our fears take over.
The problem in our lives isn’t necessarily the trial itself—the problem is where we let our minds take us. We don’t just suffer what we’re suffering, we suffer how we’re suffering. I’ve been through several unbelievably difficult situations in my life where I felt completely at peace as God worked, and I’ve walked through some trials that have rocked my world—the only difference was my response. Our trials are only our trials as a result of how we respond to them…in other words, when we don’t have peace and rest about the situation, that’s when it becomes a trial. When we don’t trust or we don’t wait, chaos takes over.
Sometimes we don’t experience peace and rest because we’re trusting but not waiting, or sometimes we’re waiting but not trusting. Trusting without waiting is striving. As a natural born solution-oriented problem solver, my heart struggles with striving all the time. I see a problem and my mind immediately goes to work on how to solve that problem. Now, we are not supposed to sit back and do nothing—God does call us to work. But if we work without trusting, we’re striving and our efforts are for naught. Do everything you can do, and then trust that God will come through. If your marriage is struggling, if your spouse is not changing, love them way God calls you to love them, and trust that He will move. Do everything you can to demonstrate grace and love even when it’s not returned, and trust that God is working in their heart.
Waiting without trusting is worrying. God reminds us, “Do not be anxious about anything”. Oh, how my heart struggles with the “what if’s” of fear! I need to constantly remind myself that God’s gives us grace for today, not tomorrow. If we’re trying to solve tomorrow’s problems with today’s grace, we will fail every time. Stay in today, and trust in His sovereignty. Trusting and waiting have to go together. Combine them, and you’ll know the peace that’s surpasses all understanding. God is at work. He is at work in the world and He is at work in your marriage. Trust and wait and you will see His glory.
Press on ~ you are loved 💗
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