When I brought my newborn home from the hospital, I was overcome with the realization that this baby depended on me for everything. During those first months as a new mom, I learned what sacrificial love looked like in action. Babies and young children have many needs and must fully depend on the loving adults in their lives to care for them. They have no choice but to trust.
As we grow and become more self-sufficient, we learn to provide for our own needs, while acknowledging that we are still limited: we aren’t in control of all of our circumstances, we experience hardships, pain, and suffering, and we aren’t all-knowing.
This is why the life of faith is characterized by trust and dependence on God. Children are wonderful examples for us. The word picture in Psalm 131:2 (ESV) shows us what trust and dependence on God can look like:
“But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me.”
When we are in distress and feeling inner turmoil, we need only to remember the character of the God we serve: like a loving mother, God gathers us close and provides the nourishment we need. Our all-powerful God knows all and knows us and loves us deeply. Even when we don’t know the way forward, when all we can see is darkness, when we are as helpless as a newborn, God holds us like a nursing mother.
I love how Henri Nouwen puts it: “When I trust deeply that today God is truly with me and holds me safe in a divine embrace, guiding every one of my steps I can let go of my anxious need to know how tomorrow will look or what will happen next month or next year. I can be fully where I am and pay attention to the many signs of God’s love within and around me.”
It’s much easier to trust God when everything is going our way, and it costs us nothing to say we depend on God when we feel fully in control of our lives. It’s only when the rug is pulled out from under our feet that our trust is tested. When we can’t see the way before us, when we feel powerless to change our circumstances, when we are walking through a season of suffering, can we trust God’s love and presence in our lives?
What is one thing you can surrender to God today?
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*Feature Photo by Jessica Christian on Unsplash
Sarah K. Butterfield 
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