The following is a devotional is a contest entry I entered for Compel Training. The topic was on stress, worry and trusting God in the hard places of life. There were over 600 entries and only 40 were chosen. I wasn’t picked, but I really enjoyed the process and got some good feedback from a few close friends and family members. So, I wanted to share it here on my blog and hopefully encourage someone else who may be worried and praying about something. Keep praying. Keep asking. I’ve heard it said that God is no respecter of persons. What he does for one, He can do for another. 🙂
Anxiety took over my mind as a pile of bills sat before me and I wondered how I was going to pay them. I was living paycheck to paycheck and struggling to make ends meet. Not only that but my car was due for maintenance and I needed to pay my taxes and renew my registration.
Normally in the past when I was in a financial bind, I could call on my grandmother and she would usually lend me a hand. To which I am very grateful and blessed to have someone like that in my life. But I was in a season where God was trying to teach me to rely on him as my source and not my family.
So, I prayed over my bills and specifically asked God to either increase my income or to send money another way. I released the situation into God’s hands, trusting that He would provide.
During this time, I stayed faithful in paying my tithes. I could have easily quit doing that and used the money towards my debts or my car, but I didn’t. This is where my true test of faith was coming into action.
About a month later, God answered my prayer. Not only with enough money to take care of my bills and car, but also in the specific way I asked. I found out that I would be getting a bonus and pay increase at work. Then, unexpectedly, I got a $100 refund on a security deposit from my phone company. Praise God!
This situation of trusting God was a huge leap of faith and it got me thinking of the story of Abraham and Isaac. Abraham was asked to sacrifice his promised son Isaac, and without question or hesitation, Abraham took his son to be sacrificed. When God saw his obedience, he stopped him from sacrificing his son, and provided a ram instead. Abraham called the place Jehovah-Jireh, “the lord will provide” (Genesis 22:14)
One thing I’ve learned in my 30-year journey with God is that He can’t use what we don’t release to him. We can either pray & release our concerns to God trusting that he knows best. Or we can cling onto them with clinched fists trying to solve them on our own thinking we know better.
Letting go is hard, but if we truly know the one whom we are releasing our concerns to then it makes loosening our grip easier. Abraham trusted God because he knew him as faithful. However, if we don’t believe that God is faithful to keep His promises, then we will struggle to be obedient when we are asked to do that which we think we cannot.
In order to build that trust, we must spend time getting to know Him better and learning about His character. Then once we’ve found him faithful in one area of our lives, we know that he will be faithful in other areas as well.
Tiffany Brown 
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