Distrusting God?

"We distrust God when we are fearful of losing control. When we try to take control we ultimately leave no room for God to be God." (Lysa TerKeurst, Trustworthy)

Those were the first two sentence that started the Bible study I was working on that day. And they hit me like a sucker punch in the gut.

I'd spent most of the week leading up to that day living fearful of losing control in a part of my life. My ability to imagine the worst case scenario outcome of something had been racing ahead of reality for days. And I was exhausted because of it.

Living in fear of losing control is exhausting. 

Living in a constant state of imagining the worst possible outcome of a situation is exhausting.

And I knew that.

But, until I read those words, I hadn't connected them to my current situation.

The part of those words that hit the hardest was that my fear of losing control was actually distrusting God. I don't usually think of all of my efforts to control things as distrust of God. But, as I thought about it more, I realized how true it was.

I had an entire week of studying the lives of a couple less well-known kings of Israel and Judah to really see that. 1 Kings 12 & 13 tell us about the first two kings of the divided kingdom that followed Solomon. Rehoboam, Solomon's son, made some poor choices and the kingdom was divided. 

Jeroboam became king over the 10 tribes of the northern kingdom of Israel. And, he began to make decisions that revealed his distrust in God and his fear of losing control. These choices led Israel into idolatry and turning away from God.

It can be easy to read this and think we won't do that. We're not kings and we're likely not going to build golden calves for people to worship. That may be true, but when we stop to look at what drives some of our decisions, we may see more similarities than we do at first - at least I did when I read it.

1 Kings 12:26-27 says:

Jeroboam thought to himself, "The kingdom will now likely revert to the house of David. If these people go up to offer sacrifices at the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem, they will give their allegiance to the their lord, Rehoboam, king of Judah. They will kill me and return to king Rehoboam.

Jeroboam was afraid of losing control of the people and that led him to make choices that proved he didn't really trust God. Those choices led him and Israel astray.

But, Jeroboam had a promise from God (see 1 Kings 11:29-40), that he could trust. When things stopped going clearly as he though they would, Jeroboam reacted in fear of losing control and revealed his distrust in God.

How often do we do the same thing in our own lives?

This is exactly what I'd been doing in the week leading up to this realization. And, as I studied the outcome of it, I knew it wasn't where I wanted to stay. I had to make a choice to trust God with what I can't control. I had to let go of the fear of losing control. And I still have to choose that everyday in this area of my life right now. But, I know it's the best choice.

Is there an area of your life where your fear of losing control means you are not trusting God?

What would it look like to trust God in this area of your life today?