Trusting in the Lord part 1 of 3

Beth Moore Conference June 2006
Part 1
What is your "this thing" - what's in your box?

These are my notes from the Beth Moore conference I attended in Oklahoma City this summer……
Session One
Being in a position of need puts you in a sweet position to be desperate for Him; when you are in need, His Word comes alive to you. Sometimes you have a season of life where you have wonderful things and horrible things all happening to you at the same time – welcome to life! :)

If you’ve been temped to accept that your pain is part of who you are, this is a fresh word for you that the Lord gave Beth specifically for this conference.

Psalm 115:1-15 –
v.1 ‘Not to us, O Lord, not to us but to Your Name be the glory because of Your love and faithfulness’. This is not about me. In Greek – ‘to demonstrate and make your glory visible’
– v 5-6 look at money – it has eyes (but doesn’t see) it has ears (but cannot hear) and mouth (but cannot speak) –and it is America’s biggest idol – we think it will bring us security.
v12 – He remembers us and wants to bless us – in the literal translation “He will bless us” – the repetition of this in the psalm is to make us take notice of the point.
v.11 – here it is – “Trust in the Lord”. We are here to receive a call to Trust Him. We all have things we have more difficulty trusting the Lord for than other things. Some of us have a deep root of distrust. This is the specific message Beth felt the Lord directed her to share at this conference. He wants us to identify any areas of our mistrust andHe wants to heal us in these areas.

Duet 1:28-33 – the sliver of your life where you don’t trust God
v32 KJV – “ Yet in this thing you did not believe in the Lord.” ………What is your ‘this thing’??

Many of us know we’ve seen mighty works of God in our lives and yet we come up against something that challenges us and He says to us…. ‘are you kidding? you don’t trust me with THAT after all we’ve been through together and all I’ve brought you through?’ Even though you’ve seen him do wonders in your life in other areas and you trust Him for the great work of salvation? Whatever it is, just confess it – Lord I don’t trust You with ‘this thing’ – that’s how we get over it. In the NT greek, the word faith is often translated to say ‘trust’ or ‘belief’. They come from the same word.

Faith is something that begins in the head. No matter how I feel and what things look like, I’m choosing to believe what I know to be true – I’m Believing God. When ‘trust’ is translated instead of faith, the contrast is different. Trust is part of faith in the Hebrew terminology. Trust is the most intimate part of your faith walk. In English it sounds different to say ‘I have faith in you’ – than to say ‘I trust you’. Faith comes from the head; Trust comes from the heart. – when the faith of what we believe also becomes what we feel. Do you wish your heart would catch up with your head? What would it be like if we could feel what we knew to be true? If it would go from my head to my heart – then we are talking about trusting God.

Pv3:5 – Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. Think it and know to be true – He can be trusted.
Ps 28:7 – The Lord is my shield, my heart trusts in Him
if you really want to dig into this sometime, do a bible study and look up all the places in the Word it mentions the heart and trust.

Trust is a matter of the heart.
Think about it, it is possible to believe someone, but not to really trust them.

According to God’s Word, do you have a distrust problem? How can you tell?

Distrust manifests itself in 2 ways:
1. A Persistently Ailing Heart:
I’m not talking about a grief over a loss (like a loved one). I’m talking about a persistant battle of an ailing heart. When we have an active trust for God our hearts are light and leaping! If we have a heavy heart all the time – it is because you are taking on God’s role in that burden and we are not made to do that. Hurts keep on coming. Scars don’t hurt – wounds do. Scars don’t bleed, wounds do. If we are still hurting over something its not healed yet. There is something we’ve not trusted Him with in that hurt so it doesn’t heal – the same wound gets the scab knocked off over and over again. I don’t think its going to change – it’ll keep happening – what if the person that is hurting you or the thing that is hurting you doesn’t change? WE have to change. I want to change and quit being hurt that badly by ‘this thing’. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could quit reacting to it – the enemy KNOWS it works – that’s why he keeps using ‘this thing’ –he doesn’t even need to come up with something new if we let it keep us down. If you say, well I keep getting hurt because I’m just a sensitive person, God says, ‘no, it is because you are not trusting Me with ‘that thing’. Sometimes our heart will ail and we don’t even really know why.
2. A Spewing Mind –
at the place where my mind ‘spews’ – that is where I’m not trusting Him
Is 26:3 – You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast because he trusts in You. The things my mind is steadfast about, I trust God with ( not that we are always perfectly trusting but that we are settled and for the most part trusting Him). Where my mind isn’t steadfast – that is where I have God distrust on ‘that thing’. It is the root of our distrust. Find the root of your vain imagination to find the root of your distrust. What pre-occupies you and causes you anxiety? For example: I’m getting older everyday….. what if my husband doesn’t think I’m attractive anymore and thinks I’m looking old? What if he starts liking someone else? Don’t let yourself believe for a second the lie that to be desirable is what it takes to be valuable- that is a lie. We are valueable because He made us in His image and calls us His own. We can’t make people love us or be good enough or cute enough- instead ask the Lord to just help you be who He made you to be. All of us get wounded and need healing. The place where I need the deepest healing is my ‘this thing’, the home of my God distrust.

Many of us have authentically trusted God with different challenges in life. We may all be different in what our ‘this thing’ is – some struggle in the area of finances, family, looks, love life, career, etc. Think of the different areas or compartments of your life as boxes. If you were to list out 7 or so boxes that would generally compartmentalize the areas of your life, what would they be? What boxes are you not trusting God with? You tend to keep the lid on them…. lets open up this box and if we are willing, get a healing from God for it. The enemy uses this box to do a number on you—instead, let’s get some healing. The enemy will keep using the same exact boxes and darts as long as they keep working on you. (Why should he bother to change what is working so well?)

It is not enough to trust God that what we fear the most won’t happen – for two reasons:
a. Because the enemy knows this is where your fear is, this is where he’ll continue to torment you in your thoughts.
b. Because that means our trust in God is conditional, which makes us very vulnerable in that area

Trust says ‘God I just trust You that if what I fear the most does happen – You are still going to be with me, taking care of me’

He’s writing a great story with your life – but remember, great stories have nail-biting chapters! We all want great stories in our lives but no pain on the way there. Lord while we are here, help us to live lives that would glorify you and terrify the enemy.
Ps 112:7-8 – he will have no fear of bad news – his heart is steadfast, trusting in the Lord. It's not that bad news will never come – it's just that the person trusting in God won't be living in fear and anxiety of it coming.

Beth has a bracelet which says ‘the Lords’ – it was old and broken, but the Lord fixed it. and told her ‘you know Beth, I can do anything. If I do not do what you ask and fix what you ask – is it because I couldn’t or because I’m not faithful? No, I can do anything in a second flat! If I allowed something to happen in your life, mustn’t I have known that your life would have greater purpose and potential with you having experienced that thing?

Make a list of “what ifs” that worry you – what if xx happened? what if my husband stopped loving me? Well, truly I’d be very upset and hurt both with him and with God and then I guess that I’d minister out of the common experience of rejection.
When it comes down to it – the enemy can’t win because come what may – I will minister! and when I take what the enemy has dealt me and turn it around and use it to minister, then the enemy will be sorry because it will turn on him every time and God will gain the glory for using what he meant for evil instead for good.

Not just – I trust you not to let this happen, but I trust You to take care of me no matter what happens. With every reality of that statement our heavy heart lightens a little more until we realize the enemy has nothing on us because I will trust my God and my heart can leap and dance. As long as you trust Him, there is so much He can do, let Him into the secret place where no one knows you are hurting.



Your homework from this session – is list out your boxes the different areas that make up your life– then answer next to each one – which ones do you trust God in – where are you steadfast; and which ones are you not trusting Him with (where does your mind ‘spew’ and where do you have anxiety?)