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To Trust Again!

by Angela Willingham  
5/21/2010 / Christian Living

If you have ever been involved in any kind of relationship you have had to forgive somebody. Maybe they betrayed you by getting involved in a relationship with someone else. Maybe they betrayed your confidence or hurt you in some other way. Maybe it was a parent that gave you up for adoption or just wasn't there for you when you needed them. Maybe it was a lie that was told and for some reason you are struggling with giving that person the opportunity to do that to you again. I know you have heard the saying fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me. That is obviously a worldly answer not a biblical one. The bible is full of forgiveness stories. The greatest forgiveness story of all is the forgiveness that each of us who received Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior receives.

Consider this. God knows everything that we are going to do, before we do it and when we come to Him requesting forgiveness, He forgives us. How can I forgive like that? Joseph's brothers sold him into slavery, but when they needed him, he forgave them and gave them what they needed, he took care of them in spite of what they had done to him. What is this saying to you and I? If Jesus and Joseph wanted to fulfill the purpose and plan that God had for them forgiveness was necessary and it is also necessary for each one of us.

I find myself at a crossroads. The Lord has revealed His will for my life, He has made it clear that there are some conditions that need to be met and one of those conditions is to let go of the past, to trust again. I have to stop trying to protect myself and let Him do it. I have to trust that the people He has placed in my life may have made mistakes dealing with me in the past, just like I made mistakes dealing with them and others, but they do have my best interest at heart.

So here is the question-What do you do when mistakes have been made and trust has been negatively impacted? Do you start all over with the same parent, business partner, spouse or friend or do you abort the mission? They messed up before. They let you down before. They left you hanging before. What do you do now? What do you do when God has given you clear direction that this is His purpose and plan for your life and it just does not look right to you, based on what has happened? What do you do when your education and experience say you should be doing this or that, but you are not in control, and your business or ministry partner can't see it and won't do it, they won't or don't appear to be listening? What do you do when God has been clear that He did not give this to you, your role is to follow, encourage and support? If you are a child and this is your relationship with your parent you should be able to relate to what I am saying. Everybody knows parents are in charge. If you are a wife and you are a Christian you might be able to relate also, because the Word of God makes the man the head of the wife. If this is your spouse and you know God called you into this marriage you know what I am saying. Well this was business/ministry and God had placed me in a very vulnerable position, a position that I was not accustomed to and He expected me to complete the task.

If you are me, you stay in position. You go back to work with the partner God gave you and you trust God to work through every issue and circumstance. No it will not be easy, but God is building something in each one of you. You don't know what He is doing in the other person, focus on what He is doing in you. The ministry and business were almost aborted, but God knows what he was doing and they survived. Many people have come and gone, but the core is what He wants the core to be. He intends it for good that many lives may be saved. He knew my business/ministry partner and I would have some issues with each other, that was all part of the plan. His plan to teach us to show love to those we come in contact with and to strengthen us for when the greater works need to be done. My gifts and strength would be placed in the shadow of the leader He chose to place over me and my humility had to grow to accept it. It was not about who knew the most or had the most experience. It was about being obedient to God and submitting to His will. I wish I could tell you I got everything right but the truth is that I did not. I wish I could tell you I did not try to submit my resignation every other week, but the truth is I probably did. It became a joke some days. The truth is there were times when emotions led to division, but I am grateful that God did not give up on either one of us. The enemy brought distractions that led to division. There were many nights I found myself working on the project alone, but even in that God was trying to teach me something, not to force my will, not to try to find a place for myself. There are days when I don't know my role and God is teaching me that I have to trust Him even in that. Those of us who are accustomed to being in corporate America have to have a role (job title) and job description or we can't function. All God wants from me is for me to trust Him and use the gifts He has given me.

When we started building this ministry at God's direction 8 years ago, I had no idea what it would entail. I thought I had it together. I believed that my deliverance had been secured already and I was straight enough not to get into anything else. Little did I know that the very thing God was building this ministry on was my trusting Him in spite of new hurt and new misunderstandings that I as yet had not even experienced. Little did I know that what He would require of me was more, more sacrifice, more hurt and more life experience. More trust. Anyone that knows God in an intimate way is probably saying, "girl you had to know", but the truth is that I did not. One of my sisters once told me, "God would not allow you to go through as much as He has or prepare you as much as He has for something small". I did not know the rollercoaster ride that I would go on for God to get me to the place He has me in right now. The things that I thought to be betrayals were really just the tools and experiences God was using to prepare me for a greater level of ministry. Little did I know that my very life and life experiences would be required of me and that the scripture we used for our Temple Time exercise class was going to be one of my theme scriptures 1 Corinthians 6:19-20: 19 Don't you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, 20 for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body. My experiences are not my own. They belong to God. They are the testimony of what He can do with a life that is given to Him. They are the experiences that will be used to help walk another sister through the things I have had to experience.

Over the last week, I have felt like I was going crazy, still fighting and not realizing I was fighting the very will of God. Thinking the problem was someone else and having to realize the problem was me, my disobedience, my will and my desire to protect myself. I have been hearing the Lord say in more ways than one trust me. I thought I had, but when it became clear that the arguments I had been having were based on a lack of trust, I had to repent.

If you are like me you don't always get it so sometimes God has to send someone to hit you over the head in a gentle and loving way. Some one who will know nothing about you or your situation but can speak the truth, a word from the Lord in love (Ephesians 4:15). I was struggling. Fighting against the very person God put in my life for me to work with. Watching my ministry partner work to resolve issues when at every turn or appearance of adversity, I was willing to quit and said so. I wanted to stop my attitude and actions, but not knowing how. Thinking I was the victim in it all and still trying to protect myself.

God sent a beloved sister in the Lord from Facebook. Yes, I said Facebook. You have to know that God can use whomever He wants to use, when He wants to use them. God owns everything including Facebook. A sister I had never met, but those of you that are familiar with Facebook know how it works. You see someone with something that interests you and you send a friend request. I am on Facebook to network. Identify other people that are going the same way I am going in ministry, in relationship with the Lord and people I have known in the past. I saw the face of Prophetess Tina Campbell. At the time I did not know she was a prophetess. I saw her robe and assumed she was in ministry. (You know this really was not about me, but about the divine appointment that God had established for me.) I sent a friend request. She responded with more than a confirmation. She responded with a request that I call her when I had time, she had a Word for me from the Lord. I did call this vessel of the Lord and she spoke to my situation, she spoke to my spirit. She made it clear to me what the real problem was and the very things I was struggling with were cleared up. She told me God had showed her I had a wall up. The final comment was that I had to let go of the past, put it on the back burner to move into the thing that God had for me.

For me that meant I had to let go of the hurt from the past. I had to trust again. Two days later I read a devotional that said something about being gun-shy. If you don't know what that means, it means afraid, distrustful. That was me. I had been hurt. I had let my guard down, trusted again and I did not want to let that happen any more. While I believed that the people that hurt me may have intended it for evil, God didn't. He intended it for my good. He intended it for me to grow into the beautiful butterfly He intended for me to be physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually and relationally. He intended it for my good and His glory in ministry to others that were going through .

My son's father brought me a word too. In discussing my vulnerability and never having had to follow a man's decisions in this way, he said, "what did you do before"? I said I followed God and he said, "keep doing that, follow God." The truth is that if I am following God and God has placed this man in authority over me in business I am following God. My flesh is what is fighting. My flesh is fighting submission to his God given authority.

The truth is that I had been tripped up by a lie. The lie between my friend and I really did exist, it happened, but it was not enough to stop the work God had given us to do and it was not enough to claim or destroy our friendship, so what was the issue? Why was it still wreaking havoc in our lives? The truth is it was still a problem because I allowed it to be a problem.

After talking to the prophetess, reading a few more devotionals and readings that God strategically placed in front of me to get my attention, and most importantly talking to God I realized there was a trust issue. The trust issue was between He and I, not my friend and I. I would never be able to trust anyone if I did not first trust God. I had to trust that God put this person in my life, it was not something I chose. I had to trust that God had entrusted a friendship to us and also a ministry and all the drama and nonsense that had occurred was just the enemies way of trying to stop the work and will of God. My emotions were trying to destroy everything and isn't that the way of the enemy, to get us caught up in nonsense?

I don't know about you but I am so tired of the roller coaster. I want to see what God said come to pass. I shared with my business/ministry partner and friend that I was struggling with trust. I apologized for my bad behavior, the constant arguments. I shared that I was fighting with him because I was trying to protect myself, because I did not think he had my best interest at heart. His response was that yes, I do have your best interest at heart. The truth is that if he had said nothing, it is more important that God has my best interest at heart and this is where He has chosen to place me.

Maybe you are experiencing some issues of lack of trust because of something that has happened in the past. I want to encourage you to Trust God. We cannot trust anyone until we get it right with Him. We have to allow Him to operate through us.

The only way I will be able to trust again is to allow God to do it. There are a couple of things I have to do:

1. Trust God. Proverbs 3:5-6: Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do, and he will show you which path to take.
2. Get my mind right. 2 Corinthians 10:3-5: We are human, but we don't wage war as humans do. [a]We use God's mighty weapons, not worldly weapons, to knock down the strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments. We destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God. We capture their rebellious thoughts and teach them to obey Christ.
3. Identify the reason behind it. Genesis 50:20: You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people.
4. Leave the end result to God. Romans 8:28: And we know that God causes everything to work together[a] for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.

If you like me find yourself in a place where you find it difficult to keep going, to trust again, be honest about it. You cannot fake your way through it and you cannot pretend as though that is not how you really feel, because God already knows. He is waiting for you to come to Him with the truth. Being able to forgive is difficult, whether it be forgiving someone else or forgiving yourself, but if you want to fulfill your purpose and do what God has called you to do it must be done. Hold on to the scripture in Philippians 4:13: For I can do everything through Christ,[a] who gives me strength. On your own you cannot do it and neither can I. You can see that on my own I could not even recognize what my mess was, but I am grateful that God saw fit to love me enough, first to use me for this assignment and second to want to see me healed. The next step is mine. I have to decide to let it go and move on and so do you.

Angela Willingham, CEO New Beginnings Holistic Fitness Ministries, Inc.
www.mynewtemple.org
Copyright New Beginnings Holistic Fitness Ministries, Inc.

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