Let Go of Trust Issues - Summer Break pt. 8
Tired of being unhappy, miserable, grumpy, sour, bitter? Feeling like there should be more to life than this?! You don’t have to settle any more! God had a good plan for your life, but you got lost and can’t find your way out. Is there any possibility that God could put you right back on the right path? Let’s chat about how putting our trust in the wrong place can cause some bumpy roads. But! There is Good News! Join in now!
Diana’s Notes
Welcome to today’s podcast where we will be Shifting Our Focus For Better Empowerment- Overcoming Trust Issues
Well, this is week 8 of our summer series of Heartfelt Conversations with Diana! It is hard to believe Labor Day Weekend is almost here!
I must say, the weather where I am has just been perfect!! Sunshine during the day for beautiful walks along the beach shore or catching a baseball game or just enjoying sipping on lemonade on the front porch. The evenings are cool and comfy- awesome for campfires and the best sleep ever! I am loving it and I am very grateful to be surrounded by such beautiful scenery!
Say 1 thing you are grateful for out loud right now! GO!! OK! Ha Ha - I’ll stop babbling - but I truly am grateful!
So, last week I started sharing how I began my faith walk.
Side note: A faith walk simply means we have come to a place in our lives where we are willing to take intentional steps toward believing and placing our hope and confidence and trust that God is Who He says He is - that is a faith walk - simply believing God. Period, and then following ( the walk part) ha ha -
we believe we are Who He says we are ( His Children) by believing in His Son and through His Spirit have decided to step out in faith that God will fulfill all of His promises, even if we can’t see them with our physical eye. In Christ, we are able to have an eternal, spirit-led perspective for our life here on earth and for our forever eternal home in heaven.
A spirit-led life that lines our perspective up with what God’s word says, not the world. That is walking by faith. Trusting God
2 Corinthians 5: 7 in the AMP Bible says - for we walk by faith, not by sight (living our lives in a manner consistent with our confident belief in God’s promises)
We are all unique and have our own stories and personalities so each one of our experiences and walk with the LORD will be customized to fit us. Each one. So that, because it is specific and unique to us, it will qualify us within our own selves to have that personal, confident belief Knowing that God indeed keeps His promises - ALL His promises from generation to generation.
So, my faith walk began with Learning OF Jesus. Simply because He said so. LOL
Last week we read in Matthew 11:28 that Jesus says , “Come to Me” COME -
Come means we step towards Him. It is a step of faith. Jesus goes on to say, all you who are weary. I was weary! I was tired of my life. Tired of myself. Tired of being unhappy, miserable, grumpy, sour, bitter. I was tired of feeling like there should be more to life than this! I felt like I was missing something obvious. I just didn’t want to settle any more.
If God had a good plan for my life and if there was the possibility that God could get me back on the right path, then I wanted that!
At this point in my life, I had nothing to lose. I was so lost, so frustrated with life, with people, with myself. I NEEDED God to BE Who He says He is, that was my only hope.
I was hungry for more and God brought me His manna. His food. His Word.
He did this in a couple of ways. Pastor Beth was giving a message one Sunday some years ago and I can’t tell you the exact message ( but I bet she knows exactly which one) anyway, she was telling an example about a friend of hers whose life had drifted away from the path she believed God had for her and during this conversation Pastor Beth asked her friend if she believed if God really wanted to, if He really desired for her friend to be exactly where she needed to be at the exact place she needed to be at the exact moment she needed to be there, did she believe God could do that,would do that, and her friend answered yes. The message was on: the line - and not the dot on the line and I got, I understood, I was enlightened from within- what Pastor Beth was saying not only to her friend, but it was the exact message I needed to hear, exactly when I needed to hear it. Yes, God can put my life back on the right track, but! I had to do my part, step out in faith, believing He would be there to greet and meet me, then show me the way.
Pastor Beth’s message was one way God spoke to me to help me get on the right path
The second was the verses God brought to my heart and had me fix my eyes on.
Trusting Him daily! I was not going to get through the wilderness, through the wild, through the depths of the forest I had gotten so lost in if I did not learn to move when He said move or stay when He said stay. Learn to follow by learning to trust.
Now for me, my situation, this wasn’t about making a choice to Believe in Jesus. I already did. I believed in God. I believed in Jesus and received Him as my Savior, but I knew NOTHING , absolutely nothing about a life with Jesus after salvation. ( This life of Grace) Growing up, my whole entire life was centered around church. My mom was very active in the church. If the doors were open she was there. Which meant so was I.
I was baptized in a pond of a local gospel venue, where a lot of gospel quartets would come. My dad loved quartets. 😀
I knew of a holy spirit because we sang songs of the trinity, the deity of God - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But I was never taught any clear understanding of the role of the Holy Spirit and the Work He does for and with us regarding our current lives. I had the understanding the holy Spirit had a smaller role, more low key in today’s times. This current century. I thought it was more of a limited time - in biblical days- when God wanted to start His church. I was not taught that the Holy Spirit should be very active in our lives if we follow Jesus. Today!
Then sometime around 2019, Pastor Jeff shared a message on Walking the Line. A Be ALL IN type of message This was another way God was confirming my steps to quit “messing around” with my faith and be all in. At the end of his message Pastor Jeff invited people who were ready to walk the line, And invited people to pray with Pastor April for an infilling of the Holy Spirit to help lead and guide their faith walk and new commitment, I was terrified and thought it was weird, but I did it. I felt a nudge to go and so I did. And it has changed my life.
Trusting and believing God’s word, period. Was the first step in learning of Jesus. Yes. I made a commitment to believe God’s word . I was all in. No matter what. No matter if I agreed or understood or liked it. BUT, I had read the bible my whole life and it made no sense to me. It was the biggest riddle in my life. Like a cruel joke to frustrate me and prove I wasn’t wanted by God.
Then I encountered the Holy Spirit and everything changed. Suddenly I started reading the bible and it was like the words were jumping off the page and coming to life within me. It was incredible. Nothing in our language describes that experience when God’s word becomes Alive within you . It’s like you've been traveling in a dark hole of life and suddenly someone turned the lights on and you knew exactly where you were, and needed to be.
My eyes and heart had been fixed on other people and how they received me, how they made me feel, how valued they saw me. I lost my faith in times of trouble because my eyes were on me, on others, on the circumstances and situations that I could see with my eyes. Not on the ONE Who is over ALL THINGS. My eyes were not fixed on Jesus.
Please don’t make the same mistake I made and then get stuck there for decades because you are too afraid of change.
Please don’t fix your eyes on your ability or on anyone else, on another human being and expect them to be your savior, your knight in shining armor. The person that you just know will make you happy! Or, they’re just the smartest, strongest, most wealthy, bees knees of everyone and everything.
There is only ONE MAN Who will never fail you, the Son of Man, and His Name is Jesus. There are many verses in the Bible that refer to the Son of Man,
Matthew 20:28 says:
For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Hebrews 13:5b says (NLT): "I will never fail you. I will never abandon you."
In Matthew 24:35 Jesus tells us (NIV): "Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will never pass away."
Just trust me on this one!!! Oh wait! Aren’t we talking about Trust issues??!! LOL
Kidding!!! NO! Do not be passive about this! Do not take anyone else's perspective of Who Jesus is - That is what you must lay hold of!
YOU!!!!!!!! You must do this on your own. So that you will know the TRUTH.
And you will only know it, recognize it and receive it for your- self when you seek after the TRUTH yourself. It must be your journey. Your Walk, Your fellowship with the LORD. When it becomes your own foundation by experience, no one and nothing can or will ever steal it away from you again. PERIOD!
The AMP Bible tells us in Philippians 2:12
...continue to work out your salvation…
It describes what that means [that is, cultivate it, bring it to full effect, actively pursue spiritual maturity] with awe-inspired fear and trembling [using serious caution and critical self-evaluation to avoid anything that might offend God or discredit the name of Christ]
None of us like to implement critical self-evaluation - but it keeps us from becoming self-righteous and helps us to remember it is only In Christ that we have any Righteousness - which simply means that we have right standing with God because of our relationship with His Son Jesus.
God in His grace, mercy and love will help us in our faith walk. Through having a spirit-led life and getting to know God through His Word and following Jesus, keeping our eyes fixed on Him, His ways of being and doing things while on earth but knowing He was a true citizen of heaven. God helps us grow and He helps transform our lives, but we have to actively seek Him above everything and everyone (including ourselves) and put in our own effort into this relationship and fellowship with Him. It is your journey and my journey to take and no one can take it for you and no one can take it for me. BUT it is SOOOOOOOO Worth IT!!!!
In my Bible, I have written the year 2020 and underlined 2 scriptures 1 in the Old Testament and 1 in the New Testament that were verses God gave to me as I began my personal Faith Walk. One of those verses is -
Exodus 16: 4:
Then the Lord said to Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from the heavens for you; and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion everyday.
God wanted Moses to instruct the people to gather food - but only enough for that day. Why? Because God is stingy? Because God is only powerful enough to create a limited amount of food every day?
No, God wanted the people to learn to trust in Him. God has been trying to teach people to trust Him for a very, very long time. You would think that we would LEARN to get it!
Remember how we have been talking about how we can try to avoid problems by controlling everything and everyone? Well, God said if we are going to trust Him and expect Him to Make a Way in our lives, then we better realize as quickly as possible, that God will not be controlled and He can wait until you are perfectly miserable if that is what it takes.
So God said…. Continuing on …. I will rain bread from the heavens for you; and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in MY law or not.
The Message Bible reads Exodus 16:4 this way:
God said to Moses, “I’m going to rain bread down from the skies for you. The people will go out and gather each day’s ration. I’m going to test them to see if they’ll live according to MY Teaching or not.
I am going to read the scriptures leading up to God telling Moses this:
Exodus 16 beginning with verse 2 of the Message Bible
The whole company of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron there in the wilderness. (Aaron is the brother of Moses, in case you are not familiar with the names)
3 The Israelites said, "Why didn't God let us die in comfort in Egypt where we had lamb stew and all the bread we could eat? You've brought us out into this wilderness to starve us to death, the whole company of Israel!"
4 God said to Moses, "I'm going to rain bread down from the skies for you. The people will go out and gather each day's ration. I'm going to test them to see if they'll live according to my Teaching or not.
If we don’t know the character of God. If we don’t know that God is love,
(The Good News Translation tells us in 1 John 4:8 - Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.)
He loves us deeply;
if we do not know I AM, the God of Moses, the God of Abraham, and Issac and Jacob, If we do not know Elohim - Creator God, If we have absolutely no relationship with God no experiences with Him, how can we ever come to truly trust Him when the chips are down, when our very lives depend on His existence. On Him being exactly Who He says He is. I Am That I AM and what I AM is what I will be!
Remember from last week?
Exodus 3:14
And God said to Moses, I AM WHO I AM AND WHAT I AM, AND I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE; And He said, You shall say this to the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you!
That is why I am doing this podcast. I believe I AM has sent me to share His Good News in a better way of living, because of His faithfulness to me in the darkest, most evil, depressing, agonizing times of my life.
One of the verses I felt led by - the reason and purpose my life was spared on so many occasions: was to fulfill this calling.
Psalm 118:17
I shall not die, but live, and shall declare the works and recount the illustrious acts of the LORD.
There are a lot of reasons God tells us to trust Him, to follow His ways and He gives us many examples throughout the bible and in coming weeks we will begin to discover them. But this is a lifelong journey.
There are no Top Ten Ways to Easy Street.
This is a day by day walk and trust relationship with the Lord. He may give you answers to some things, many will come as you grow and gain time in your journey together; and some things you will never have answers to, but will begin to learn and lean on the simple truth that now, you don’t have to know all the answers to all the reasons for so many things but now you can let go, give it to God and rest in knowing,
“He’s got this!” As long as you are doing your part in developing your relationship with Him, He will always do His part.
God is good. He is trustworthy. He will never fail you. He loves you. Right now, warts and all. 🙂
I hope these conversations inspire someone to be encouraged and step out in a faith walk with Jesus today.
Why does shifting our thoughts off of being frustrated to being thankful, from complaining to gratitude, from anxieties to trust; how will doing these basic things help to empower us - because we are learning self- discipline, coping skills, learning our thoughts and emotions do not control us.
We do not have to live a roller-coaster life of out of control feelings. We can be stable, have smoother roads, smaller waves of stress and anxiety when we change our attitude off of what appears to be trouble ahead to trusting God to lead us through it and out of it safely when we keep our eyes fixed on the WAY - which is Jesus.
Give it a go and see how better your days go. Is it worth it? For me YES!!! ANd a thousand times YES!!! But, this is a path only you can travel.
Do you want a sweet life or a stressed life?
If you desire the Sweet Life - then we must focus our hearts and minds on TRUSTING GOD, holding our Peace and Remaining at Rest!
Learn to Trust God One Day at a Time - He will Never Fail you!
Here are some scriptures to read out loud every day to set your mind on God and His faithfulness so that we can learn to trust Him with all things!
Psalms 119:90 NIV
Your faithfulness continues through all generations; you established the earth, and it endures.
Psalm 145:13b (NIV):
"The LORD is trustworthy in all he promises and faithful in all he does."
Deuteronomy 31:6 (NASB):
"The LORD your God is the one who goes with you. He will not fail you or forsake you."
May God strengthen you, help you, and uphold you with His righteous right hand!
God Bless! And see you next week!
OH! ( My Story- The Introduction of this podcast will air Next week for Labor Day Weekend and then the following week, we will wrap up the Summer Series and THEN.. jump into fall!
Holy Cow!!
That is just crazy. Christmas is coming - you all!! LOL
Songs to inspire you
Trust In God (feat. Chris Brown & Isaiah Templeton) | Elevation Worship
See A Victory & Surrounded with Brandon Lake | Live From Praise Party 2019 | Elevation Worship
Scriptures from this week's Podcast
2 Corinthians 5: 7: in the AMP Bible
for we walk by faith, not by sight (living our lives in a manner consistent with our confident belief in God’s promises)
Matthew 20:28
For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.”
Hebrews 13:5b
"I will never fail you. I will never abandon you."
Matthew 24:35
"Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will never pass away."
Philippians 2:12 The AMP Bible
...continue to work out your salvation - [that is, cultivate it, bring it to full effect, actively pursue spiritual maturity] with awe-inspired fear and trembling [using serious caution and critical self-evaluation to avoid anything that might offend God or discredit the name of Christ]
Exodus 16:4 The Message Bible
God said to Moses, “I’m going to rain bread down from the skies for you. The people will go out and gather each day’s ration. I’m going to test them to see if they’ll live according to MY Teaching or not.
Exodus 3:14
And God said to Moses, I AM WHO I AM AND WHAT I AM, AND I WILL BE WHAT I WILL BE; And He said, You shall say this to the Israelites: I AM has sent me to you!
Exodus 16: 2-4 of the Message Bible
The whole company of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron there in the wilderness. (Aaron is the brother of Moses, in case you are not familiar with the names)The Israelites said, "Why didn't God let us die in comfort in Egypt where we had lamb stew and all the bread we could eat? You've brought us out into this wilderness to starve us to death, the whole company of Israel!" God said to Moses, "I'm going to rain bread down from the skies for you. The people will go out and gather each day's ration. I'm going to test them to see if they'll live according to my Teaching or not.
Psalm 118:17
I shall not die, but live, and shall declare the works and recount the illustrious acts of the LORD.
Psalms 119:90 NIV
Your faithfulness continues through all generations; you established the earth, and it endures.
Psalm 145:13b (NIV)
"The LORD is trustworthy in all he promises and faithful in all he does."
Deuteronomy 31:6 (NASB)
"The LORD your God is the one who goes with you. He will not fail you or forsake you."
EXODUS 14:14
The LORD will fight for you, and you shall hold your peace and remain at rest. In Christ you have the same power living in you that rose Jesus from the grave! How amazing is that child of God!
Foundation Verse
Romans 8:11
The Spirit of God, Who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Chrisr Jesus from the dead, He will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living in you. “
Additional Resources
Prayer of Salvation
Jesus has given salvation, healing, and countless benefits to all who call upon His name. These benefits can be yours if you receive Him into your heart by saying this prayer:
Heavenly Father, I come to You admitting that I am a sinner. Right now, I choose to turn away from sin, and I ask You to cleanse me of all unrighteousness. I believe that Jesus rose again from the dead so that I may be justified and made righteous through faith in Him. I call upon the name of Jesus Christ to be the Savior and Lord of my life. Jesus, I choose to follow You, and I ask that You fill me with the power of the Holy Spirit. I declare right now that I am a born again, child of God. I am free from sin and full of the righteousness of God. I am saved in Jesus’ name. Amen.
This prayer and the comment above, were taken out of the book:
Secrets to Powerful Prayer - Discovering the Languages of the Heart
By Lynne Hammond and Patsy Cameneti
If you have just received Jesus as your Savior, please write Lynne Hammond Ministries at:
PO Box 29469
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55429-2946
Or, email one of the ministries listed on the Additional Resources Tab and let them know that you are a brand new christian and need some direction on the next steps for your new life in Christ.
Or email us here at Heartfelt Conversations with Diana and we will pass along your information for you.
Congratulations if you are a brand new Christian or if you have Returned Home! Welcome!!! Get in God’s Word and get it into you!
Diana’s Home Church:
Valley Family Church - Pastor’s Eric and Alexa Jones
www.valleyfamilychurch.org
Other recommended Jesus-centered churches who teach the True Word of God:
Elevation Church - Steven Furtick
https://elevationchurch.org/
Joseph Prince Ministries - Joseph Prince
https://www.josephprince.org/
Joyce Meyer Ministries
https://joycemeyer.org/