My Story: The Journey Begins

About eleven years ago, the Holy Spirit started me on this journey of trusting in the Lord.  I was at a point in my life where I felt like I had failed, big time.

I accepted Jesus to be my Lord and Savior when I was four years old.  I cultivated a great relationship with the Lord all growing up.  I was a model kid.  My biggest vice was being afraid of messing up and expecting that I could succeed on my own.  I’ve always had high expectations for myself and in return given myself undue stress.

I had graduated with my bachelor degree and had entered a master of arts in teaching degree program.  I had known I wanted to be a teacher for a long time. I didn’t have a ton of confidence in myself and classroom management was difficult for me.  My professor didn’t see me passing this part of the program, and after summer term and fall semester, I wasn’t invited back to graduate with my class.  I had borrowed a lot of money for that program with nothing to show for it except for more fear of failure.

The Journey Begins – The Rest of the Story

About a month later, the journey begins.  Up until then, I didn’t know the benefits of truly giving a situation to him and watching him work it out.

One day at church, my pastor gave me a word from the Lord which was, “Rest in me.  Just rest in me.”  From then on I started to put what I was learning about trusting in the Lord into practice.

I started giving him a situation and thanking him for working it out.  Something miraculous happened, it worked!  I started to see God working out everything I gave to him!  I started with smaller situations that built my confidence in trusting in him.

God loves it when we give him a situation and trust him that he will work it out for us.  That’s faith in action.  I think God gets excited when we trust in him and the journey begins.

It took me about a month to recover from what seemed like a failure.  However, I didn’t stay down.  I didn’t maintain a victim mentality of poor me.  I decided to do what I could to gain more experience and confidence in the classroom.  I contacted a couple of teachers and visited their classrooms.  I became a substitute instructional assistant (teacher’s aide) at first and eventually got hired in a couple of IA positions.

Two years later, I knew it was time to enter another teaching program (different college).  I had more experience, more confidence, and a greater ability to trust in the Lord.  I did what I could and let him do what only he can.  By then I had established a history of trusting in the Lord.  I had given him so many things, big and small, and watched him work out them all.

I got accepted into the program.  It was the most intense 10 months of my life, but I didn’t quit.  I got excellent grades and good reviews from being observed in my student teaching.  However, there were still thoughts of fear of failure in the back of my mind.  It was as if my mind was under the attack of fear because I had “failed” in this area before.  One evening during class it got so bad that I ended up crying in my professor’s office.  I told two of my professors the emotional struggle I was going through, being afraid of not making it.  They were very encouraging.  I kept praying, trusting in the Lord, and passing the tests.

Before I knew it, graduation day had arrived.  During the hooding ceremony, our professor put our hoods on each one of us as we stood proudly facing the audience of family and friends.  As she put my hood on me, she whispered behind me, “You passed, with flying colors.”  I don’t think I will ever forget that moment.  I not only passed the program and earned my MAT degree, I also passed trusting in the Lord.

There have been times where I’ve had to be reminded to trust in the Lord.  When I do trust him, he always comes through for me.  Always!  You can’t fail living this way.  Trusting in the Lord makes life so much easier and so much more fun!

When something comes up that I don’t know how to handle, I do the same things every time.  I give it to the Lord, ask him to let me know if there is anything I need to do or say about the situation, and ask him for his word on the situation.  That’s an important step.  When I have his word of victory about a situation, I know for sure that he will work it out for me.  His word might come from a song or a verse he reminds me of or by him telling me something directly.  That’s one reason why it’s important to put his word in your heart so he can remind you of it.

It seems that so many Christians believe that just because you’re saved doesn’t mean you’ll never have problems.  That may be true, but when you live a life of trusting in the Lord, it can be smooth sailing because he will work everything out for you!  When the journey begins of trusting in the Lord, that’s when life becomes glorious!

Let me know about a time you have trusted in the Lord and he worked the situation out for you.  Have a wonderful day!