Trusting God means doing the hard thing. That may not be what you were hoping to hear this fine Monday morn, Beloved…but I’ve got a whole bunch of folks in the wings here ready to testify that it’s true. I sure do.

For Noah it looked like building an ark, despite the fact that he was a farmer and there was a drought. For David it looked like continuing to care for the sheep in the field despite being named future new king. For Abraham it meant going to a land he did not know, and then later climbing up a mountain with his son Isaac in tow, despite what God asked him to do once he got there. Yikes.

For Rahab it meant opening the door. For Joe it meant marrying Mary anyway. For Hagar it meant packing up her stuff AND her son and heading straight into single-mom life. Yep.

For Esther it meant going before the king without an appointment…and planning a banquet…and giving herself time to pray and come up with a plan. For Dan it meant enduring the den instead of simply refusing to pray his normal three times a day. Yep.

For Paul it meant continuing to praise in the prison and for Moses it meant marching his butt into Pharaoh to demand his peoples release. Oh, and did I mention he’d have to do that MORE THAN ONCE? Yep. Oh, and did I mention that he’d then have to lead these now-free people for forty long years while listening to them grumble and complain the whole way? Think "arewethereyet?" FOR FORTY YEARS! Ikr? That’s what I’m saying. HARD. THINGS.

Beloved, if you’ve been raised or somehow led to believe, that trusting God is passive or inactive; I hope today’s panel of guests helps you see, like they did me, that trusting God looks far less like doing NOTHING, and a whole lot more like doing a REALLY HARD THING. Indeed.

For even as I sit here now, I realize something that I reckon is pretty darn huge… Why would God SO want me to know that He is with me wherever I go…(Josh 1:9)…if I’m actually not to go anywhere? Hmmm.

Things that make you go Hmmm, amen? Amen.

So maybe today’s takeaway reads… Perhaps trusting God… looks like doing a really hard thing. And perhaps THAT is why God is saying to me… "Be strong and courageous, for I Am with you wherever you go." Hmmm. And Yes. Big Love. And Good Monday.