Trust, revisited

It is theme week here at Katy's Mommy Musings. Yes, that means that I am actually going to attempt to write multiple meaningful posts in the same week! The key word here is "attempt"—the next several weeks are going to be quite hectic for me, and it's difficult to find time to sit down and write. But God has really laid some important things on my heart, and I want to share them with you.

It all started this morning when I sat down to create this post, and I kept getting off-track from the original point I wanted to make. As I typed, thoughts and conversations and events from my past few weeks kept coming to mind, and I realized that I have a lot to say on the topic. What topic is that? Trusting in God's goodness and sufficiency.

I wrote a post about trust a while ago… but apparently I've got a thick skull, and God has to keep pounding the same lesson into my brain. And since I have to review it, so do you. J

So here's what I originally sat down to say this morning: Our idea of God's goodness can sometimes be warped by our humanness. We equate goodness with happy endings, and that's just not always the case. We read the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and we think that it was awesome that they trusted in God even though they didn't know whether or not He would save them—and then of course He did save them. God is good.

And then there are stories like John the Baptist's. He trusted God and followed His will, and then he was beheaded. Was John wrong about God's will? Did he somehow misread what he was supposed to be doing, so God allowed him to be killed? No. He was serving God in his life and his death. And God is good.

I've been thinking a lot about the moms' conference lately. (Ha! That's an understatement!) I've been telling myself and anyone else who will listen, "I trust God with this conference." It's become a bit of a mantra for me, something I chant without giving it a second thought. "I trust God with this conference." But what I really mean is, "I trust God to make this conference wildly successful." I'm realizing that those two statements aren't the same thing.

You see, the conference is not working out quite the way we had hoped. This fundraiser for our MOPS group is right now costing me… well, let's just say it's costing me. We need 150 attendees to break even, and as of today (less than 3 weeks before the event) we have 32.

I have spent a lot of time going over the past eight months, since I started planning this conference. Did I do something wrong? Did I not pray enough before I went ahead with the planning? Did I get off-track somewhere, making this conference about my glory instead of God's? OK, I'll be honest, I have struggled with that, but honestly—after much prayer and reflection—I completely and totally believe that God has led the planning of this conference.

And He has led the promotion and publicity and led every single registrant to register. And He will continue to do so. And maybe He'll choose to bring in another 200 new women on the day of the event and it'll be a roaring success.

And maybe He won't. Maybe I'll lose money on it. Maybe our break-out sessions will each have 5-10 people in them. Maybe half the people who have already registered won't even come.

And He'll still be good. It will still have been His event. I will still feel confident that I followed His leading. He will still use it for His glory.

God is good. In fact, "…we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him,
who have been called according to his purpose." (Romans 8:28) Sometimes that happens in a way that makes sense to us, like saving three faithful servants from the fiery furnace. And sometimes He allows sacrifices to be made to better serve His purposes, for the good of all those who love Him.

Today I rest in knowing that God is good, no matter the circumstance. He sees a much bigger picture than I do, and I will trust Him, even if………