Tag Archives: trust

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I Need Your Help – Really?

“Phil, I need your help. I want to move the gardenia bush from the pot it has been growing in. It’s root bound and needs more space.”

Phil obligingly gets a shovel and a wheelbarrow and says – “Where do you want the hole?”

“Right here.” I reply. I am standing next to an especially favorite hydrangea between a calla lily and a yellow daylily. I have positioned my self to “protect” these plants from the shovel. So I say to Phil –

“Don’t step there!”

“Dig from this side.”

“Watch out for the lily poking through.”

“Don’t pile the dirt there!!”

Phil stops digging and asks – “Do you want my help or not?”

The realization of my request for help sets in. I want Phil to dig the hole because I am not able. YET – I have made it impossible for Phil to help me with the limitations I have put on him. He has to stand somewhere, and the dirt he digs to make a hole has to go somewhere. I am not really asking Phil for “help”, I am telling him what to do.

This realization got me thinking about my cries of help to God. I may be facing a crisis and cry out to God “Help me” yet in the next breath I am telling God what to do, when to do it, and the outcome I expect.

I am giving the God of the universe, omnipotent, omniscient, creator and sustainer of all things – advice. Really?

Proverbs 3: 5-6 says –

Trust in the Lord with all your heart;
do not depend on your own understanding.
6 Seek his will in all you do,
and he will show you which path to take.

Do not depend on my own understanding…

How often I think I know what is best… for myself, my husband, my children, my grandchildren, my friends, my acquaintances, my enemies, even random people I don’t know – “That person should just…”, my grandchild’s coach, the referees or umpires, my pastor, the worship leader?

The list could go on and on couldn’t it?

How totally presumptuous of me!! Is God thinking – “Do you really want my help or not?”

The answer is TRUST. I must trust in the Lord with all my heart. I must surrender my will to God’s will. God knows the big picture as well as each small detail of my life, i.e. the number of hairs on my head. Scripture is very clear on the fact that God has a plan for all of creation and a plan for how I, as an individual, fit into that bigger, glorious plan. He will direct my path.

To finish the above story about transplanting, I left to get water to soak the newly transplanted gardenia since Phil did not need me telling him HOW, after I told him where I wanted it planted. When I returned, Phil had placed it in the newly dug hole and the surrounding plants were just fine.

Trust.

# In My Garden with God

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Letting Go

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“Letting Go” – Those words evoke various mental images depending on what stage of life you are in. As a young mother the first image that came to my mind was someday in the “far off future” I would have to let go as my child moved out of the home when they grew up. What I learned along the way was that there are MANY times we must “let go” as mothers. These situations affect each of us differently, depending on many variables. Some of the situations that require letting go may include:
* leaving a child with a baby sitter for the first time
* leaving a child over night for the first time
* leaving a child at childcare
* leaving a child in the nursery at church
* leaving a sick child in the hospital
* the first day of school
* the first day a teen DRIVES a car alone (my personal hardest)
* leaving for the military
* leaving for college
* leaving to get married

Each of these situations requires us as parents to let go of our control of our children’s lives. We are no longer with them seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day. How do we handle these situations?

Trust

It is not trust in our children. They after all are children, no matter how well we parented, how bright and smart they are, or how much they have shown us we can count on them. They will make mistakes. Didn’t we?

It isn’t trust in the world we live in. It is all too clear around us that we live in a fallen world. Not only do those we love make mistakes, there are individuals that intend harm.

Our trust must be in God.

We must remind ourselves that God loves our children even more that we do. He is faithful to work His purposes in the lives of our children and to use their mistakes as well as ours to accomplish His will in their lives.

There are several examples in Scripture of God requiring mothers to trust as they “let go” of their children.

Hannah had to leave Samuel in the care of Eli, who did not have great credentials when it came to parenting. (see I Samuel 2:22-25) Yet God used Eli to speak to Samuel who later became a mighty prophet for God.

Mary, the mother of Jesus, faced this very real issue of letting go. One situation is recounted in Luke 2:48-49. Jesus had stayed behind in Jerusalem, without letting his parents know. When they finally found him three days later, Mary was understandably upset.

48 His parents didn’t know what to think. “Son,” his mother said to him, “why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been frantic, searching for you everywhere.”

49 “But why did you need to search?” he asked. “Didn’t you know that I must be about my Father’s business?”

It is not easy to trust, yet when we learn to trust as we let go, God proves Himself faithful. God knows what lies ahead in the lives of our children. Let’s make sure that we let go and let God.