LORD, I Don’t Understand…But I Trust You
As special needs parents, we can experience so many circumstances with our kids that we didn’t expect or don’t understand. When the diagnosis comes; or when the prognosis is difficult; or when we’re being bombarded with bad news, it can be so easy to succumb to disappointment. We don’t understand why God allowed this or why He didn’t do that. We’re faced with disappointment again when we expect God to show up in a certain way at a certain time or do a certain thing, and He doesn’t. We’re disappointed and confused and we don’t understand.
In those moments, we may wrestle with how to reconcile our unmet expectations and desires with our beliefs about what a faithful, trustworthy God would do, should do, in those situations. If we’re not careful, we can begin to quietly—in our hearts—correlate our circumstances to the character of God. And we start to wonder whether or not God is faithful or good or… But, rather than taking our disappointments and questions directly to the Lord, we may suppress or hide those feelings. Meanwhile, as our disappointments and questions remain unaddressed, our hearts are quietly hardening towards God.
Some of us may have been taught to not question God. That to do so was dishonoring to Him or indicative of a lack of faith or maturity. As a result, we allow our unspoken questions and deep disappointments to lead our hearts and trust away from God rather than us leading those same questions and disappointments to the only One Who can answer them.
The truth is that God not only allows our questions, He welcomes them. God wants to hear our questions and disappointments. (He already knows we have them.) Sharing them with Him invites a dialogue—a conversation; and honest conversation builds, over time, an authentic, intimate relationship. It invites friendship with God which leads to trust. We learn to trust Him because we’ve spent time with Him and we know Him. Not because our circumstances are perfect or because we understand or even like everything He’s doing, but because we know Him.
I heard someone say that, when God doesn’t answer her prayers or show up in the way that she’d hoped, she’s learned to start telling herself, “God must be up to something.” This perspective, she admitted, was born out of her relationship with God—a relationship marked by an ever-growing intimacy. From spending time talking with and listening to the Lord. Getting to know Him, His character, His ways, and His love for her.
What if we adopted that same mindset: a perspective that says, “When God doesn’t do what I’d hoped or expected—rather than doubting or losing hope—I choose to believe that God must be up to something. Something bigger. Something better. Something that I don’t know to ask Him for yet.” This would mean choosing to trust Him in spite of things we don’t understand. It means believing that, despite my disappointment, He is still for me. It means choosing to not make assumptions about His motives that don’t line up with His character.
It’s a mindset that comes from being in an intimate relationship with Him.
The thing that enables us to make the leap from, “Lord, I don't understand,” to “But I trust You,” is a relationship with Him that is marked by intimacy.