the-fear-of-trusting-god-completely

The fear of trusting God completely

Do you like the sea? Anyone who was born or even just lived in a seaside town is in love with the sea. I am one of the many lucky ones born and raised in such a city. I lived near the sea for many years. It only took me 20 minutes to get to the beach …

When was your last sea walk?

When was the last time you walked along the shore, listening to the gentle splash of the waves? Since when have you not swum in its blue-green waters and felt its coolness? You probably rarely remember how you relaxed as a child on its smooth surface … Maybe the summer memories have faded … Or maybe life has moved you away from it ….

If you love the sea, then it is part of you

They who loves the sea seems to be a part of it. But with age, things change and blue infinity loses its former power. Or maybe it just makes a whole different sense of having a sea nearby. And they are certainly accustomed to its eternal presence and salty smell.

The sea inside you

And the sea inside you? The sea that you never dared to swim. The sea that still scares you and that is waiting for you to open it to cross it … like Moses and the Israelites?
If you don’t go to it, you won’t get to it. You will never feel it, if you don’t step on it, even to the ankles. If you do not get your feet wet and if you do not have strong faith, it will never part before you.

Divide it by faith so that you may pass it

For each person, for me and for you, God has created a sea to be divided, by faith in the power of the Eternal God. You must be wondering what I mean by “dividing”. Now I will try to explain.
You remember the biblical story of Moses, who brought the Jewish people out of Egypt after more than 400 years of slavery there. (Just to add: archeology has proven that this is not just an interesting story, but a real historical fact). So, fleeing from Pharaoh’s armies, the Israelites reached the Red Sea, which God divided into two through Moses, and the people passed through its bottom, on the way to the Promised Land.
This is not just one of the many exciting biblical accounts, but it is also a source of incredible spiritual lessons and reflections. Let me share some of my thoughts as I reflected on the great sea that each of us faces one day on our earthly journey.

Never swam and waiting

So, here is your sea – never swam and probably forgotten, and maybe rejected. It is more acceptable to think of standing on the shore with your feet trampled to your ankles and a gaze caressing its smooth, quiet surface, but not walking on its bottom.
I don’t know where these thoughts of mine find you now. It must never have occurred to you that there is an ocean in your life that you have to swim across. It doesn’t matter if you can swim. In my story, you are a very good swimmer. But where are you now? On the shore? On the way to the sea? What if you are already at the bottom, trying to get to the other side … But maybe you are at the wrong bottom, maybe – at someone else’s sea, probably covered with someone else’s sticky mud and silt …

Or maybe you’ve been battling tsunamis for years with waves of thoughts, fears, guilt. Perhaps you still can’t forgive yourself that when you had more strength and abilities you didn’t swim across this sea … And you didn’t swim it, you postponed it, you were afraid of possible sea storms. You didn’t like its waves sometimes. Other times there was a lot of algae and it was muddy. It was too cold or too hot to bother going to it …. This is the sea! No pool of blue tiles with mineral water disinfected with chlorine!

The sea is constant. You are the one who changes

The sea is constant – it never changes! It used to be big and now it’s the same size. But you have changed: more tired, sicker, more disillusioned, more doubtful, more unhappy, more hesitant, more anxious, more complaining, less smiling, more critical, more negative, more unfaithful, more untrue, more nervous, more overplaying, older, and as if smaller … And your sea seems even bigger and more insurmountable.

Who is greater?

If the sea seems terribly BIG to you, then how great is the One Who created it ?! Maybe you smile now, because this thought is spectacular – the thought of ONE GIANT GOD, WITH A TERRA OF POSSIBILITIES, Who is looking forward to asking Him to throw all those mountains and weedy hills from your life into the sea. He wants to silence the tsunami waves and then split it for you to go dry …. And to PASS it at last! To keep it behind your back, to walk a little further and to enter the Promised Land – Home. I am talking about our Heavenly home, which God has prepared for us.

Cancel swimming lessons

As much as you swam as a child during the summer vacation or with your children when you took them to the beach, that`s it! Now this is another sea – YOURS! It’s too late to swim across it. You had to do it long time ago. You did not put effort, resources and time, it’s over! But there is also good news: God did not ask Moses and the people of Israel to build rafts and boats, nor did He cast lifebelts from heaven for them to cross the Red Sea.

God divides seas, not makes people build vessels

There was no sea with Noah. There was a flood there and things were different. Still, it took Noah 120 years to build the ark. You don’t have 120 years to stand on the shore, procrastinate, hesitate, leave and come back and wonder if you will have enough strength to swim. Oh, no! And don’t think about plan B – to build sailing facilities! No one has set you such tasks. You are not Noah! God has an easier option! Cancel private swimming lessons, no sense. “For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm.(Psalm 33:9)
God has had mercy on you and just wants to open this HUGE sea for you so that you can finally cross it.

Scary thoughts

“I don’t know what’s on the bottom.” That thought is scary, I know. And I’m there on my beach – in the evening I go home, and in the morning I come back and look at to this blue sea …. and I’m afraid … a lot. I think of movies like “Moses” and “The Ten Commandments.” Hollywood shows through computer effects the wet sandy and stony narrow path between the high sea walls on both sides. There at the bottom – it is certainly wet, cold and the chilling sounds of sea monsters and whales mixed with the strong smell of the sea make me shiver.

Time for a change

But it’s time for big decisions. It is time for great miracles, time for great faith. It is time for our GREAT GOD to show HIS GREAT POWER, through us, the small and insignificant! It’s time to get to the bottom. But not that bottom of the wreckage of our shattered hopes, expectations and unanswered prayers …. But to reach the bottom of humility, to descend to the bottom of our broken hearts of pain and problems and to dig out that key hidden in the sand. What will happen if we allow God to unlock the last door behind our fears? Only He can drive them out, enter and fill our minds and hearts with His love and salvation.

Just as there is no sea without a bottom to pass through, so there is no passage without Moses. Today, God is the One who wants to lead us. He is the Good Shepherd. His ways are higher than our ways … (“… My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.”) Isaiah 55:8, 9

“For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon Me and go and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. And you will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. (Jeremiah 29:11-13)

 

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *