If you were raised and brought up in this world, then you were raised under the standard of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. We were brought up to learn how to handle and cope with the adversities of life on our own, independent of God. In the garden of Eden, Adam and Eve lived completely dependent on God until the fall when they ate of the fruit of the forbidden tree. Their temptation was to gain knowledge, ability, and discernment of good and evil independent of God. In other words, being able to know and do things without needing God.
If we are real with ourselves, in many places in our lives this is the norm. As a result, there are many times in life when we feel like we can’t hear God or He doesn’t seem to be present during difficult times or struggles. Many times, our default is to try to handle it on our own. These times can seem like the most difficult times to connect with God. This is because all the insecurity and pain in us is looking for a place to land that seems safe. This safe space or box that we construct creates walls and barriers to protect us to prevent anything we deem “unsafe” at the time from coming into our life.
When our insecurities are triggered, much of the time we switch to defense mode and need things to look and happen a certain way to feel safe. When God doesn’t meet us within these constraints, it can feel like God has abandoned us or isn’t present. We often don’t realize that our constraints require God to look and feel a certain way in order for it to feel safe for us to meet with Him. While many times God will meet us in this space/box because He loves us, there comes a point in your relationship with God where He will no longer allow you to constrain Him into your box. God wants to show up in your life completely Himself, without your constraints. God wants us to get to know who He really is, not who we want Him to be.
For us to truly know who God is, we need to come to a point in our relationship with Him where we allow Him to set the conditions of how He meets with us. When we get triggered by something, we will find that God is waiting for us with His hand outstretched to us, just outside of our safety box. As we choose to trust Him and take that small step outside of our box, we find out that He was always close and has never left us. He has always been there waiting to fill us with the peace our hearts have been longing for. As we encounter Him more and more, we find ourselves getting further and further away from our box until we can’t even see the box anymore. The more we run to and encounter Jesus as our comforter and our defender, our own protection mechanisms start to feel largely inadequate, causing us to naturally surrender these things to Him more and more. An important thing to remember is that Jesus is the One who does the work, for He is the author and finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:2).
As we surrender more of our independent thinking and actions to Jesus and begin including Him in all of our ways (Proverbs 3:5-6), we find ourselves naturally surrendering and trusting Him with our needs just like Mary of Bethany (in Matthew 26:6-13). Fully aware that her own protection mechanisms have failed her, she lays herself and her needs bare before Jesus, and in response, Jesus becomes vulnerable to her about His needs. She was the only one in that dining room with whom He shared the gruesome death He was about to experience. In response, she poured out her most expensive perfume, worth a year’s wages, all over Him as an act of love and adoration towards Him.
When we are real with Jesus, He shares who He really is with us.
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