Trust Like an Inch Worm

I found this adorable inch worm that the girls accidentally knocked off a flower he was resting on.  When I went to put him back, I watched him inch along my hand, then stop and stretch blindly looking to find something else to climb on.  When he found nothing he inched along and stretched himself out again, and this blind walk continued until he found the petal I was holding him up to, then he found his spot and remained still.

Now I don't know much about inch worms, but I am a visual person and God often reminds me of things through photographs.  This past week at church we were challenged to trust God in the process.  Right now for me "the process" has more to do with my past than my future (I have no doubt that dynamic will shift in time).  But something that was said really brought my heart to tears.  How many times do we try to guess as to why we are walking in a difficult season.  Or guess as to why something has happened to us or how God is going to use it, most of us cling to Romans 8:28.

{ And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. }  ~Romans

I know I have, and nothing is wrong with that because God truly does work out all negative and all the bad...for a positive purpose.  But I have clung to this, all the while putting so much energy and stress into trying to validate for my own purpose of moving on, why events in my life happened.  I tell myself if I can help just one person get out of an abusive relationship, or help on child get help and move on from a sexually abusive adult...then it would have been worth it.  And I'm sure those rationalizations look different to each person depending on their circumstance.  But I'm trusting in my own understanding, trusting in my own abilities to rationalize and as was stated last Sunday we "put God in a box" when we do that. 

God simply doesn't think like we do, he sees the beginning and the end at the same time, he has the ability to see each of us where we are, he knows what our life is going to look like, the struggles we will face and knows the end result.  He already knew the ending before we were born.  He knew how everything was going to work out and look like.  But we often don't know or even see God working sometimes, until we are able to take a step back and see how things came together.  So much energy (at least for myself) is spent trying to rationalize and see how the pain we endured is going to work out, it helps us to cope.  But what happens when we do not get those answers?  What happens when we have to move on without the answers?  A beautiful testimony was given at church last week and the young lady said all God would say is "I am with you".  While its honestly not what you want to hear when you are looking for answers. 

Just think of your very worst times in life and now think about God being right there simply saying "I am with you".  I think of the scared little girl wondering why she is so hated to deserve the life she was living, and knowing that even though I couldn't see him or feel him, God was with me.  I think of every awful moment in my life and can imagine God saying "I am with you", there has been no person on this earth who has been with me through everything I have gone through, no person that faithful to be there every time I cried, every time I hurt, every time I wanted it to end...yet God was with me at each point.  That is a love that I have never known until recently.  Each of us have felt some level of fear, loneliness and isolation.  But you can let go and be set free of trying to find the answers yourself.  I know we want answers, want to make sense of tragedies and pain, but that isn't our responsibility.  What if you could lay down your fear, your need to know, the energy you are putting in to reasoning it away, and what if you could trust God and move forward. 

Trusting God through the process, means also trusting that he has a plan with what you have been through.  Like the inch worm who takes a few steps and then blindly reaches out find his next step, when he doesn't find it, he takes a few more steps, then reaches out again and reaches out in each direction only to take another step....until he reaches that next step...then he rests.  If a tiny inch worm that most people never see and pay no attention to can have unwavering faith and perseverance in his every step, then we too can learn to trust in the steps we have already taken and the steps we are moving towards.