What I Learned Last Year

January of 2014 started off with a bang for me.  On January 11th, 2014 I received a call from my publisher and was told that they were closing their doors.  When the publisher closed their doors it meant that I would never receive the money they owed me in royalties.  Since my three books are self-published, it also meant that the book they told me was at the printer and that I was scheduled to received within weeks, was never printed.  I also had to figure out how to get the 3,000 copies of my two previous books that they held in storage.

What a way to start a year!  I felt like I spent the entire year, and am still, trying to dig out of the financial crisis that I faced.

Photo credit: Daquella Manera via Compfight cc

 

When we face crisis in our lives, often we look back and see what we learned.  I learned that I need to trust God more than I trust anyone or anything else.  More than trusting a publishing company, I need to trust God.  More than trusting money, I need to trust God.  I also learned to trust God more than I trust any person because people will let us down.

It seems so obvious now, but why would I ever trust anyone more than I trusted God?  If you had asked me before last January I would have never believed that I trusted anyone more than I trusted God.  But when so much was taken away, I saw how my trust had been misplaced.

There are three things that we can do to make sure that we keep our trust in God first in our lives.

1.  Repeat the words, “I will trust you” throughout your day. Some of the most important words that a Christian can say is, “I will trust you.”  I learned that whenever worry begins to overwhelm me I have to say, “I will trust you.”  Sometimes before I get out of bed, and  throughout my day I have to say, “I will trust you.”

2.  Lean not on your own understanding. Why is it so difficult to trust God more than we trust anyone or anything?  Maybe the answer lies in one of the more popular verses in the Bible.  Proverbs 3:5-6 says,Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.”  Maybe when life is going well, or even when it isn’t, we lean on our own understanding rather than trusting in God.

3.  Look back and see how God has carried you through difficult times. Exodus 14:31 says, “And when the Israelites saw the mighty hand of the Lord displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord and put their trust in him and in Moses his servant.”  When we see how God cares for us and how he loves us, it becomes much easier to trust him.

Do you struggle with trusting God?

What did you learn this past year?