Take some time to really think about this question before you go on:
What would it take for you to no longer trust God?
A job loss? Major illness? Loss of a child? Loss of a parent? Loss of a pet? Your dreams, or those for your children shattered? A natural disaster? Pain and suffering for someone you love? Not getting what you feel you deserve? Betrayal from a Christian mentor/pastor/leader?
I'm not talking about a momentary confusion in what God has allowed to happen. I'm talking about, in essence, denying Him.
Now, take it a step further. Do you trust God in everything? That means giving it ALL over to Him. You can't hold back any one thing in your life to be in control of, because you don't think you would like the way God might handle it. Have you given Him control of your job? Have you given Him control over the lives and deaths of your children, spouse, and other family members? Do you allow Him to guide you into friendship with others, or do you pick your own confidants, and then basically tell God live with it.
One of the freedoms we have in Christ Jesus is the assurance of our salvation when we trust fully in Him. We know, without a shadow of a doubt, that nothing He allows to happen can separate us from Him.
Who can separate us from the love of Christ?
Can affliction or anguish or persecution
or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?
As it is written: Because of You we are being put to death all day long; we are counted as sheep to be slaughtered.
No, in all these things we are more than victorious through Him who loved us.
For I am persuaded that neither death nor life,
nor angles nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come,
nor powers, nor height nor depth,
nor any other created thing will have the power to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord!
Romans 8:35-39
This passage is not listing things that try to tear God away from us, but to tear us away from God. Go back and read the Scripture again. This time insert "Me" or "I" in place of the pronouns "we, us, our". Make this passage a personal declaration to the Lord of your love and trust for Him and your acceptance of His love and blessings for you.
Thanks for asking such a good question! I've really struggled with this and a "fear of loss" as loved ones battle cancer.
ReplyDeleteElisabeth Elliot shared a list of things she feared losing like family in "A Lamp Unto My Feet." She says, "The list is not a list of sins--make no mistake about that. It is a list of blessings, of gifts from God. But to grasp them selfishly and greedily, to hang on to them fiercely and allow myself to be enslaved by the fear of losing them, is to deny Christ." She closes with Isaiah 41:10--"Do not fear," He says to us, "for I am with you."