What do I mean when I say, "I'm trusting God"?

So, a few days ago I had surgery. It was, in some ways, an elective surgery, but it was one of necessity for health issues. It was something I had put off for over 20 years for many reasons. But as usual in my life, all the reasons were fear. 

Fear is something I live with every single day of my life. Fear has dictated a lot of decisions in my life. When I was little my grandmother used to say to me, "I don't know why you are afraid. When it's your time it's your time and there's nothing you can do to change that, so why worry about it?" Still, fear continued to haunt me. 

So, I had put this surgery off for all these years because of fear. Fear of not surviving the surgery. Fear of the outcome. Fear of the pain of recovery. Fear I would not like the results.

Finally my family asked me to face my fears and look into the surgery for health reasons. Of course I would do it for them. I decided that I needed to put my trust in God, which is where it should be anyway, and go forward with the surgery. 

I boldly proclaimed that I was trusting Him with all the details! I prayed and told God I would trust Him with the results. And so on Tuesday, April 16, 2013 I finally faced my fears, put myself in God's hands and had the surgery. 

When I first woke up I was a little concerned about the results, things didn't look the way I wanted them to, but I reminded myself that I had said I would trust God and so I would. 

The recovery has been much easier than I had feared. The pain is very manageable with the meds they gave me. I am not nearly as helpless as I feared I would be. 

However, two days after my surgery when I finally saw the results I was devastated! My worst fears in this area had been realized and I was very, very unhappy with the physical results. I spent the rest of Thursday in a state of sadness and depression. How could God have done this to me? I had trusted Him! I had put myself in His hands and asked Him to take care of every detail. I had told Him I would trust Him with the outcome. How could He have allowed a bad outcome?! 

That is when my struggle with the above question began to form. What did I mean when I said I was trusting God for the outcome? Did I really only mean that I was trusting Him to give me the outcome I was looking for? Sadly my answer was, Yes, that is what had I meant.

There were many unknowns with this surgery. There were no guarantees of the outcome, or of whether I would be happy with it. And once it was done, there was no turning back. Whatever the outcome, I would have to live with it. And so, for the days before surgery, I prayed and gave it to God. I told Him I would just trust Him to give me the right outcome. And I meant it, or at least I thought I did. But in reality, what I meant was that I was trusting Him to give me the outcome I wanted.  

In every way my surgery is considered a success. First of all is the obvious, I survived the surgery! This was not really a risky surgery, but there are always risks with any surgery and that is always the biggest fear for me. The surgeon is happy with the outcome. The reasons I needed to have the surgery have been taken care of and the medical part of it is a success. The only thing so far is the physical outcome. I really won't know the physical outcome for awhile, but so far it is NOT what I wanted. In fact, it is everything I didn't want. 

So now the question is, what will I do with my disappointment? With my devastation? I keep reminding myself that I am trusting God with it, but really I'm walking around unhappy and miserable, regretting my choice. So, that means I am not trusting God with it at all! I keep trying to figure out why God allowed this result. Possibly because He knows that in the end other things will change and I will be happy with the outcome. But that is really only me trying to make the results fit into my version of what I wanted. 

In the end I have to do what I said I would do. Trust Him with the outcome, even though it isn't what I wanted! And to do that means I can't regret my choice, I can't walk around unhappy and sullen. I can't sit around hoping that once everything is healed it will be better, before I choose to be happy. I need to make the decision to be happy with the results, whether I like them or not, because that is what I signed up for when I told God I would trust Him with the results!! 

As I walk through this journey of discovery about trust, I realize that it's not my first time around this mountain. In many other areas of my life, at many other times in my life, I have had this same struggle. I have told God I was trusting Him but then I was disappointed when I didn't get the results I wanted. Sometimes that disappointment has led to frustration, even anger, sometimes to unhappiness, sometimes to downright depression. As God has shown me now, each of those times I had not put my trust in God to accept HIS outcome, I had put my trust in God to make the outcome be what I wanted it to be, and that is not trusting God at all. That is trusting that MY outcome is the best and God is the magic genie that will ensure my outcome happens.That leads to superstition, which is the subject of another post that God has been working on with me. 

But this one is about trusting God, really trusting God. Trusting that He is true to His word. His word says He will always work things out for my good, that even when things don't look good, they are good. The real point of trusting is that when things don't look the way we want, we trust they look the way God wants. And we trust that is good. Even though it doesn't look like it. 

What's funny to me is that this is exactly the opposite of what church has taught me faith is. For years as I've struggled with this walk of faith and trust, I have known that really trusting God is knowing that He will do what is best but it might not look the way I want it to. When I talk about that people tell me that I am lacking faith. They have told me that faith means believing God will give me what I want! But God keeps teaching me the exact opposite! 

As Christians we often quote this scripture. We say we believe it. We boldly proclaim it! But what do we really mean when we say it? I always think I mean exactly what I say. When I say I trust God to work it all out for the best, I honestly think that is what I mean. But what I really mean is I trust God to work things out the way I think is best! And that is not what His word promises.

Faith is knowing God will do what is best for me. But what I think is best and what God knows is best, are not always compatible viewpoints. This is because God knows the end from the beginning, He knows me inside and out. There are many reasons why God's best does not always look the way we think it should, but trusting Him means trusting that He knows all those reasons and has chosen the best outcome. 

So, today I must choose to be happy with the results. Not because they are what I wanted, but because they are what God wanted. And in the end, that is what this walk of faith is really about. Trusting that what God wants is more important than I what I want and that His way really is better than mine. 

Be Blessed, 

Colleen