As someone who has now followed Jesus for longer than I haven’t (strange sentence but you know what I mean), I can say I am absolutely convinced about Him. I’m not saying I don’t still ask questions or that I have all the answers, but I just don’t know how you navigate this world without Him. When I look at all of our cultural ‘shared values’ of equality, kindness, provision for the most vulnerable etc. I know that these are all biblical teachings, whether people recognise them as that or not.

God is at the centre of it all. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

I guess one of my biggest questions is why, knowing all of this, do I still struggle to trust in Him or wait for Him to act. I don’t feel like I actively don’t trust Him or consciously put anything before Him but, why do I feel like I have to take things into my own hands at times? Why do I often worry about the future? Why do I rely on other things when I know that God is my provider?

Of course I know theologically that there are other powers at work, vying for my attention and worship, and I am not immune to those. But what is it about them that persuades me?

As I was reading in the book of Isaiah today I came across a question that could be key to this. Isaiah, if you don’t know, is a prophet writing to a people who are in the throws of an exile. The people hearing his words are a people who are being turfed out of their land, a people who are doubting the strength of their God, a people in trouble. They are a people who have not feared the Lord. In the passage Isaiah is communicating to the people from the Lord and is confronting their worship of other gods and the detestable practises that they are pursuing. In the middle of this he says this.

Whom have you so dreaded and feared that you have not been true to me,
and have neither remembered me nor taken this to heart? Isaiah 57:11a

God, through Isaiah, goes on to ask whether it was because He had been silent for a while but it’s the opening question of that verse that grabs me – whom have you so dreaded and feared that you haven’t been true to me?

I think this is key to my moments of not relying on the Lord. I am dreading and fearing something other than Him. It feels wrong saying that but often I think it is true. If my fear for the Lord was above everything else then surely He would be the only one I would look to, His is the only opinion I would be concerned about, He is the only one I would want to please.

The answers to those questions are probably not for a public space but are for each of us to search with Jesus because this is an important question for us all. Whom shall we fear? if God goes before us, behind us, and is working through us, then we have nothing and no one to fear above Him. It doesn’t mean life will always work out the way we wanted but life will be centred around who it should. God, the one and the only. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Perhaps today we need to explore this and place God back at the centre of our thoughts?