Trust In The Lord
Helen Francis
“For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways,” says the Lord.
Isaiah 55:8
This is a very useful reminder to me that the answer to my prayer may not match my expectations.
It's easy to get into a habit of praying about something only through the lens of our own solutions: we think we know what is needed, so we pray for that outcome, and look in that direction for an answer. But elsewhere, in Proverbs 3:5, it says: ‘trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding’.
The Lord graciously gave me an impactful reminder of what this means whilst we were away on our recent travels in Scotland.
One of the things we had decided in advance was that we would use as many ferries as we could, as this added to the excitement and enabled us to go further whilst cutting down on driving time. By the end we had taken 15 ferries in total. Some were just little hops, others as long as three hours.
What I hadn't factored in on planning this adventure was I have a husband who suffers from travel sickness and as, I can't swim, I can get fearful if I'm at sea in bad weather…
Underpinned by prayer, all had gone very well with our travels. We'd been blessed by calm seas on our ferry trips and breaks in any rainy days, enabling us to enjoy walks on beaches etc and we were feeling very grateful.
However I had heard many horror stories about the crossing to our final island: Orkney. One friend, who had to go there frequently, said the crossing was always bad whichever route was taken, and they had to stock up on travel pills to endure it. I kept this information to myself so as not to 'auto suggest' any travel sickness but I began to get a little apprehensive as the time got nearer.
Unfortunately, as we settled down in our little caravan the night before boarding, the weather worsened and all night long we were battered by wind and rain. Needless to say I didn't get much sleep, but I got an awful lot of prayer time in! I don't know what you would've prayed for in my position, but my prayers went along the lines of "please make the storm clear before we have to cross in the morning". I probably even thought of "let this cup pass from me"; trying to garner empathy in my desperation to have the solution I had imagined: a calm crossing.
My ears strained to hear for the rain stopping and the wind dropping. I was trusting in the Lord to bless us with better weather by the morning, in the same way he had been answering our prayers before other crossings - after all, Jesus stilled the wind and waves for the disciples when they grew afraid of the storm in the story in Mark 4:39.
As it turned out, Jesus had something completely different in mind for me. The next morning the weather was no better, and it was no good trying to console myself with “the boat won't sail if it's too bad”, as I know the islanders tackle most weather on these crossings and what was "too bad" for me would not be "too bad" for those seasoned crew members.
During breakfast I redoubled my efforts, reminding myself of scriptures about going boldly before the throne of grace to obtain mercy (Heb 4:16) and how fervent prayer can be effective! (James 5:16) - not that I classed myself as righteous, but the fervent bit might work… Nothing doing! The wind stayed as fresh as it had been all night, the rain continued.
As often happens when answers to prayers are not meeting expectations at some point, we ask "why"?
Why am I not getting the result I need? Why aren't you answering my prayer Lord?
And then something significant happened, I asked "Why aren't you allaying my fears?". Because I was afraid. And that's when I got my answer, and the answer was along these lines ‘I will not stop the wind and the rain, but I will allay your fears.' and that, I realised, was the crux of the matter.
It wasn't the weather, it was my fear that needed God's intervention.
I needed to trust in the Lord to bring us through, regardless of whether it looked like my solution or not. And He did! That crossing was the most exhilarating experience for me. Standing on the deck in the face of the weather, devoid of fear and feeling so upheld, uplifted, and alive! What an amazing lesson I learnt that day. (And my travelling companion managed the crossing without incident).
