Trusting Joy

When I was growing up the four of us, my dad, my mom, my sister and I, when we were leaving church we would always go out to eat after church. It was always  a big discussion where we were going to eat. Many times we didn't agree and so often my dad would just choose. Often he wouldn't tell us where we were going. He would say just trust me and when you get there you will know where we are going. This never satisfied me. I wanted to know. I told him this too. He said what difference would it make if you knew? It's not like its going to change where we are going. I told him I would be happier if I knew even if it wasn't my favorite place I would be happier about going there if I knew we were going there. He would always answer that I needed to learn to trust my Daddy that he would pick out a good place even if it wasn't where I had wanted to go. If I didn't like it there,  then I should still be thankful that we were able to afford to go out to eat. We didn't have to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at the house (not that there is anything wrong with that at all...).
My problem was that I didn't trust my Daddy. I thought I knew better than he did. I thought I could handle it better than him. Because I didn't trust him, I wasn't happy. Another problem was entitlement. I thought I was entitled to know. I thought I deserved to know. Furthermore, I thought I deserved a certain level of eating establishment.
This may sound really silly but I think that it can be easily related to the Spiritual relationship with God.
I know many times I have this grand life plan that outlines my life for the next ten years or so of things that I want to accomplish. Don't get me wrong they are all wonderful things: missions, graduate school, volunteering, and generally taking on the world. However, sometimes I get rather concrete in my confidence level that something is going to happen a certain way. I get really excited about my plan and then I just have this vision in my head of how it is all going to work out and everyone is going to live happily ever after.
However, I take those little hints from God about the huge plan he has and just elaborate and make up the whole rest of it on my own. I think the problem is I don't like there not being an exact plan.
I am a planner. I like to plan things. I love lists and having an idea what is going on. I think it is sometimes because I think I can do a better job planning than whatever is the current state. However, how can you have a better plan than God's? I don't think that's possible. So, when I try to plan without God then, I am thinking that I am better than God and that is a problem.
But that brings me to a little snippet of Scripture that I have been thinking about.

“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me." John 14:1 TNIV


So I looked up some antonyms and synonyms of joy and I found that doubt and trouble were antonyms while trust and happiness were synonyms. Therefore we can have joy by trusting in God. He has it all under control. We don't have to doubt Him or let our hearts be troubled.


Trusting in God results in joy!