Letting Go of Knowing and Learning to Trust
Adding a phrase to my year is always a great way to mark the things I’m learning.
Phrases like “get joy” or “let God engineer” or “dependent” or like last year, “writing life”
This year’s phrase is longer… more complicated.
Yet, it sums up all the phrases from before.
Not Knowing
Letting Go of Knowing and Learning to Trust
In previous years of learning to let God engineer my life. Fully finding my joy in Him and truly understanding my entire dependence is on Him… and allowing this blog to be a place to write the stories of Him in me…
This year, I’m going farther than that. I sense God asking for more.
To trust him in the not knowing.
We live and work in a place of hard ground. Spiritually and physically.
A place full of unknowns.
Everything is new. Very little is explained and everything is full of big decisions.
Decisions based on obedience to God not human understanding or detailed planning.
The details can’t be found. The who, where, what’s of our days can’t be described to us or planned for us.
Things will happen as they happen and we will walk in obedience one day at a time.
My normal, schedule-loving self cringes at the thought.
I want to dig in, research, plan… but as in most of missionary life… the details change, things shift, the well-planned “knowns” quickly become more unknowns.
More not knowing.
The reality is that if we thought we really had to know before we went, we’d never get there. We wouldn’t obey.
We can get so caught up in the details of knowing that we forget to rely on Him, trust and move.
Learning to let go of knowing is complicated.
Moving and working in unexplored, unexplained places. Just a call to go.
And a decision to let go of knowing and be okay with the many, many unknowns.
The unknowns of schooling for the girls, housing for our family, safety for our travels, details of our destination and ongoing daily life.
Unknown.
Unanswered questions.
Unplanned adventures.
Simply having a broad scope of what the plan will or could be over the coming months.
So much blank space.
But I do know one thing.
God knows.
He is already there.
And I can trust Him.
I can step forward knowing He planned that very step.
I don’t have to know more than that.
In fact, there is blessing, love and care in the not knowing.
In not knowing the details… I also don’t know the challenges, the trials, the struggles and the pain on the road ahead.
I can embrace the gift of not knowing and walk in the freedom of unhindered obedience and untainted trust.
Remembering that, as Dick Brogden said, “It is for Jesus to know and for us to obey… any insight is a bonus.”
Knowing I’m not the first to walk an unknown path… many have walked before me having kept their eyes on Him alone.
John Wesley so elegantly exclaimed, “Knowledge of heaven is enough for me!”
And Frances Ridley Havergal, a hymn writer and poet, wrote, “It is so sweet to trust Thy word alone. I do not ask to see the unveiling of Thy purpose or the shining of future light on mysterious untwining; Thy promise roll is my own – Thy Word is enough for me!”
His promises, His Word… knowledge of Him and heaven.
He can be trusted. He is all we need. More than enough.
Not even trying to know. Praying differently.
Changing my prayer from “Help us to know…” to “Help us to trust and obey regardless of what we know.”
Whatever you are facing, whatever your day will bring, whatever may or may not be… trust and obey.
Let go of the need to know and embrace not knowing. Embrace the gift of trusting Him to take care of the details.
Trusting in the wisdom of walking in the Spirit for your every need. Letting Him guide the daily life steps as you choose to walk in obedience to Him.