Trust and Rest in Father's Embrace

I am discovering that an important dynamic in this journey of sonship is rest.  Yet the very dimension of relationship with Father that I desire most in this season of my life, seems at times the most difficult and far off.  I am standing on Matthew 11:28-30, “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.  Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”  I have spent time listening to soaking messages, quietly worshiping, allowing the Lord to bring healing to my heart, and yet the elusive reality of rest seems to escape me.

I know I am not the only one who struggles to enter into rest (Hebrews 4:9-11), yet rest is an important part of our inheritance "in Christ" and our sonship.  One very important dimension of relationship with Father I have found to be critical for rest is trust.  We often think of the great trust in God it takes to give extravagantly, be a missionary overseas, to boldly witness to those who don't know Christ, or to prophesy truth that others may question.  These are just a few but to do great exploits for God means operating in a high level of trust.  Yet I find my "truster" is broken at some level, while my head and heart long to trust God there is a little boy part of my heart that fiercely holds on to not trusting.

When you are in an environment when people are stepping out in trusting God and taking risks, when you have a broken "truster" then self-condemnation quickly sneaks in.  I remember reading Proverbs 3:5 talking about trusting in the Lord with all your heart and not leaning on your own understanding; thinking deep inside that would be amazing but it's not possible for me.  Yet Jesus reiterates this same anchor for all of life as the Great Commandment in all of the Gospels (Love the Lord with all your heart, soul or mind, and all your strength).

So where does a person with a broken "truster" go.  We must take the journey of discovering the Father's love for every part of our hearts through Jesus because trust is built through love.  In the beginning of our lives while we were in the womb we learned to trust our connection with our mothers (umbilical cord) and even our heart beating in rhythm with her knowing that our needs would be met.  Trust is not some extra that we get, it is a critical dimension to all of life and relationships.  Then as we grew, we were very dependent especially on our mother for all our basic needs to met, especially in the first five years of life.  This is the time of developing trust and also the place that we can because of broken trust get our "truster" broken.  Father through Christ is able to heal those broken places of trust in our heart, so that we can learn to fully trust Him as He expresses His love to the most distrusting, fearful, and doubting places in our heart.

Trusting and Resting in Him,
Bret