Do You Feel Like You Are Drowning in Your Circumstances?

One sunny afternoon last summer, I took the kids to the neighborhood pool. We spent most of our summer days there. All the boys could swim well and were comfortable swimming in the deep end. This day was an unusually busy afternoon. My youngest wanted to go home, so my oldest had just taken her back home to be with her dad, and I was near our stuff at the deep end.

All of a sudden, I heard my youngest boy coughing and sputtering and I saw his head bobbing up and down in the water. I called his name twice to see if he was playing around or struggling. When he continued sputtering, I jumped in after him, expecting to stand up and lift him out of the water. Just as I opened my mouth for air, expecting to lift him out, I realized my feet couldn’t reach the bottom. In his struggle, he pushed me back under.

When I took in that mouth full of water and realized what had happened, I calmed my body and prayed. It was as if time stood still for a moment. I said, “Lord, I need your help. Without you, we’re both going to be in trouble here. I can’t do this without your guidance and your breath in my lungs.” All of a sudden, I got the idea to push off the bottom, and push him towards the shallow end. Once my feet could solidly reach the bottom, I scooped him up and lifted him out of the water. He was crying and hysterical. I got us both to the edge. We then got out of the pool and sat by our stuff as I calmed him down.

It was a very eventful day for both of us. All I could do was praise Jesus for sustaining me and giving me wisdom in that situation. My lungs burned for a few days. My son wore his life vest the first 5 minutes at the pool the next day, then decided he didn’t need it already. He rebounded quite a bit faster than I did.

WHAT I LEARNED FROM NEARLY DROWNING

A little while later, I asked God what I was supposed to have learned from that situation. Here is the conversation I had in my thoughts with God. “How many times have you said you were drowning, lately?”

“Multiple times a day, for the last few months, Lord,” was my reply.

“What did you do when you were drowning in that pool?”

“I stopped and trusted in you to fill my lungs and give me wisdom and guidance. Then you protected me.”

“What would have happened if you didn’t trust in me?”

“I would have tried to do it on my own and failed. I would have panicked and been overcome.”

“Why don’t you trust me to do that with your circumstances every day?”

“Ouch, Lord. I’m sorry.”

“How many people would have panicked in that moment in the pool and wouldn’t have trusted in me?”

“Many, Lord.”

“People need to know I can be trusted.”

“Yes, Lord.”

THE APPLICATION OF FULLY TRUSTING JESUS IN OUR LIVES

My dear, friend. I want you to know that God loves you more than you can imagine. He cares about your kids, and your husband (if you are married). He cares about your to-do list and your circumstances. Jesus cares about your finances and your job. He loves you and wants your heart to trust in him. He wants you to understand that He is in control. You cannot make everything work out the way you want it to work in your own power. 

The more you try to control everything yourself, the more out of control things will get. The more you let go of that control and give it to God, the more things will work out for you. I know it’s hard to understand, but it is true.

Faith is like a muscle and becomes stronger the more you work it. Begin trusting in God for little things and thanking him for his blessings in those things. As he comes through in those things, you’ll be able to trust him with more. As you develop more and more of a relationship with him, you will understand his character and will be able to maintain your faith more and more regardless of the circumstances. Eventually, you will find that you are fully trusting Jesus with more and more things in your life.

EXAMPLE OF FULLY TRUSTING JESUS IN MY LIFE

I started my faith building journey by asking God to help me find a parking spot at busy stores. Every time a spot opened up after I asked the Lord for one, I would thank Him. Over time, they would often become better and better spots.

Another time, I was taking a long drive across a few states with my kids (my husband had to stay home for work). As we were preparing to leave, they were predicting snow and ice storms all along our path. I prayed before I left and felt settled in my heart that I would be protected from driving in any bad weather. It was one of the first times that I had a settled, fully trusting Jesus feeling.

I made it to my first destination and a snow storm started as soon as I arrived. It was nice to arrive safely, just in time.

The second destination was forecasted to get an ice storm during my drive. It turned out the ice storm arrived early and the sun melted all the ice before I set out on my travels. 

Again, there was another snow storm scheduled before my 3rd stop on the trip. (Yes, it was a crazy trip with bad weather every leg of the trip.) Again, the snow started after I got there. 

Once I was at my 3rd stop, I was conversing with a friend. She lived near me, but met me in this city a few hours from our homes for a conference. She said that it was supposed to start snowing again during my drive home (my final destination on this long journey). I remember saying, without a pause, “it won’t start snowing until after I get home. If you get home before I do, you’ll be protected from the storm, too.”

Sure enough, it started snowing 1 hour after I got home. If my friend would’ve gone straight home, she would’ve been able to drive on clear roads, the whole time. She stopped at a sit down restaurant on her way, which delayed her a bit. Thankfully, the roads still weren’t too bad before she got home.

STORIES OF OF FULLY TRUSTING JESUS IN OUR FINANCES

As we exercised our faith more and more, we felt God leading me to quit my corporate job and stay home to homeschool our kids. We didn’t make enough at the time to make ends meet without that income, but we felt God was nudging us to trust Him. We took the leap of faith, and although things were tight, He always provided. Just as things started seeming beyond our faith, we stood strong. Within a week, we got an unexpected check in the mail to cover our expenses. 

Another time, things were really tight, my husband started looking for another job and continued hitting dead ends. As we were starting to loose hope, I prayed a prayer of faith for the Lord to provide, however He deemed. Within a week, my husband got a sizable market adjustment. 

The most recent time, the debt was reaching a point we had never had before, but we remained faithful and prayed for the Lord to come through. I remember having a conversation about how it’s getting a bit more than I was able to believe for, but I was going to remain firm in my faith in the Lord. If he’s come through for us in the past, he would again. I kept reminding myself that it’s never in my timing, but God is always right on time, in his timing. We ended up receiving a much larger income tax refund than we had expected, and it was very helpful.

NOW I HAVE TO BE BETTER AT TRUSTING OUR DAILY SCHEDULE AND TO-DOS

God has proven himself faithful time and again in our lives, not just with finances, but in many areas. I am working on getting better at letting go of the little details of my life and fully trusting Jesus more and more. Not just in these areas, but also in what I feel I need to do each day, and in my schedule. I’m working on not allowing myself to feel hurried or stressed. I’m asking God to help me prioritize and if I’m late, remind me there is some reason to it. I often remind myself that either the other person is likely running late, as well, or God is protecting me from something along my path where I needed different timing than I had planned. 

It’s in these areas where I remember if I were in control, without knowing the bigger picture, I’d cause more trouble than I’m protecting myself from. God is always into the details, and the more I trust Him, the more things work out. I challenge you to try to let go of some control and let God control your life more. It’s a more peaceful way of living.

“This is why I tell you: Don’t worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Isn’t life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the sky: They don’t sow or reap or gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you worth more than they? Can any of you add a single cubit to his height by worrying? And why do you worry about clothes? Learn how the wildflowers of the field grow: they don’t labor or spin thread. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was adorned like one of these! If that’s how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and thrown into the furnace tomorrow, won’t He do much more for you—you of little faith? So don’t worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ For the idolaters[p] eagerly seek all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you. Therefore don’t worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” 

– Matthew 6:25-34

Will you challenge yourself to join me in fully trusting Jesus more in the little details of our lives? What area do you want to focus on today? Will you share this with someone you feel needs to hear this message and ask them to join you in this challenge? If this message has impacted you in any way, I’d love to hear from you. Please share in the comments below.