Knowing

In the morning, LORD, You hear my voice; 

in the morning I lay my requests before You and wait expectantly.

 - Psalm 5:3

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I don't have an exact date written down when I became a Christian. I don't have a heart-tugging conversion story, or memory of deciding I wanted to change my life by giving it to Christ.

I've been with Jesus for as long as I can remember.  His presences has always been. I don't know another way to explain it. 

In my 25ish years of learning and growing in my faith, being with Jesus has become more and more important to me. As my spiritual maturity has grown, I've realized my dependency on Him more, and my desire for conversation with my God has grown from prayer time at meals and bedtime, to a deep desire for true communication throughout my day. 

When I talk to God, I tell Him everything, even the things He knows. I lay my heart out at His feet, unloading all of my pain and agony, all of my fears and needs. But the great thing about praying to God, as opposed to telling a best friend my problems, is that I know my God has a solution. I know He is already working to solve each problem, and once I've told Him everything, I'm able to wait for His reply. 

I can do this, because over these years of growing up in Christ, spending time with my Jesus, I have learned Who He is, and my faith comes back to this truth time and time again. I know Who my Jesus is, because He has proved Himself to me, He has been faithful, He has been constant. He has never let me down.

The Christian life is a journey, and we are always growing and learning more about God, and who He is to us. 

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As I'm growing now, in this season of my life, I've been learning expectant prayer. I've always believed that God hears me and works things out for me, but it was in recent years that I began praying knowing that God would work. I may not have known when or how, but there was a feeling down in my heart telling me to pray knowing, expecting. 

You may be wondering why this is so important, and I have a thought on that:

God wants our trust. 

If we tell God we love Him, that we believe in Him, and we give our lives to Him, is this demonstrated when we pray, and don't wait for God to work? Are we showing our love for Him when we pray, and don't have assurance that He'll act? 

God wants to know that we trust Him with our lives, with the things that are so important to us. I think this reveals our true heart towards God, demonstrating how much we believe the words He has spoken, and the sacrifice He made. 

Trusting God, and growing in our faith takes time, a lifetime to be exact. But in order to grow closer to God, and deepen our relationship with Him, we must begin with trust. We must understand this key element, knowing that God is The only One we can put our trust in. 

It's in giving God our trust, laying our burdens on Him, and knowing He will act that His love for us is able to be proved. It's when we lay it all down, that He is able to show us His faithfulness by answering our prayers, and working in our lives.