Trust Me

It always strikes me how easy it is for us to trust God when things are going smoothly, and I'm quite certain that many of you know exactly what I am talking about. Things are humming along like clockwork, and you are perfectly secure in the knowledge that God is in control and it's smooth sailing.

God is good...life is good...it's all good.

From time to time, however, God allows things to happen in our lives that are meant to prod us into putting a little more meat on the bones of our faith. And it's not always of a disciplinary nature, either. It doesn't always mean we're doing something bad wrong. It doesn't always mean we've gone off the reservation. Sometimes God wants to give us opportunities to prove and exercise our faith, because that builds and strengthens it. After all, the proof of our faith is of great value to the Lord:

It's more precious than gold. Of course, when such things happen, our new favorite verse suddenly becomes a verse like this:

For the record, I have no idea what the going rate for sparrows was in first century Judea, nor would I care to guess how much an assaria coin is worth today in US dollars. But I do know one thing:

I have a little bit more meat on my faith bones today than I did just a few weeks ago.

I felt compelled to write something of a more personal nature this month, because even though it may not have been an earth-shattering event, I had an experience recently that served to remind me that we can trust God to intervene on our behalf in any situation. Because He did.

And because He did, there's just one thing left for me to do, and that's exactly what I'm gonna do:

Brag on God.

"Get me to the church on time..."

Those of you who are familiar with this website know that I am an American who lives and works in Taiwan as a teacher of adult English. Naturally, being an American living overseas entails occasional trips to America.

Typically in an airplane.

I had to make just such a trip earlier this month, because my father passed away at the age of 87 and I had to attend the funeral. The flight from Taiwan, however, was somewhat more eventful than normal. I'm sorry, did I say "eventful"? Every bad travel experience I've ever had in my entire life just got bumped down a notch, because there is a new number one in town.

I was scheduled to take a Delta Airlines flight from Taipei to Tokyo, and then from Tokyo to Portland, Oregon (which is about 45 minutes from Kelso, the town where my family currently lives in Washington). My family is originally from Illinois, but they ended up in the Pacific Northwest after my father retired in 1985. Flying Delta from Taipei to Portland via Tokyo has been my normal route for a number of years now, and I've taken this same trip enough times that I could probably do it sleepwalking.

In fact, I believe I have a few times.

But not this time. Oh no. After departing Taipei, we hadn't been in the air for more than 30 minutes or so when the announcement was made that due to a mechanical problem, we would be forced to divert—a word that ranks high on the list of "Words You Don't Want to Hear on a Commercial Airline Flight" (second only to "water landing"). After covering less than a quarter of the trip north from Taipei to Tokyo, things began to go south—we were going to have to make an emergency landing at Naha International Airport in Okinawa.

Now, don't get the wrong idea: It wasn't like in the movies. There was no obvious indication that anything was wrong. We didn't look out the window and see flames streaming from one of the engines. There was no gaping tear in the plane's fuselage sucking hapless flight attendants and passengers out of the plane to their deaths. People weren't clambering over seats and screaming that we were all going to die. We just sat there comfortably, thinking, "Hmm...I sure hope we can get back in the air quickly. I've got a flight to catch."

Right. Oh, did I mention that a typhoon was blowing in as we landed in Okinawa? Hold that thought.

After remaining in our seats for over five hours (and watching any hope of catching our connecting flights steadily get washed away in the wind and rain), over 200 weary, frustrated travelers were finally allowed to deplane. In the terminal, we were told that more information would be forthcoming after Delta flew some personnel in from Tokyo later that evening. So we waited, with many of the passengers wandering around the terminal in the dazed desperation that accompanies being stranded somewhere with no idea how or when you will ever get to your destination.

Now, the great thing about situations like this for believers is that it's a wonderful opportunity to simply trust God and watch Him work. At least that's what I kept telling myself. Obviously it's not much fun at the time, but one thing is for sure: There was a whole lotta trustin' goin' on.

As stressful as it was, admittedly it could have been worse. I was scheduled to arrive in Portland on Tuesday morning, with the visitation scheduled for Wednesday and the actual funeral slated for Thursday. So if I was going to lose a day, heaven forbid, at least I had a day to lose. I did my level best to treat it as a chance to trust in God's provision, and prayed that the Father would work things out on my behalf and get me there in time for the funeral. I remember being glad I had verses like the following memorized:

It helped. I actually remember thinking to myself:

Oh man, this is gonna be great! God's gonna show Himself mighty on my behalf and get me there on time, and then I'll write about it in an article and I'll get to do my favorite thing in the world, and that's brag on God!

Of course, things were just getting warmed up.

After deplaning, it didn't take long for our worst fears to be confirmed: We were informed that we would definitely have to spend the night in Okinawa. What wasn't clear, however, was whether they would be able to fix our plane or have to fly in another. Meanwhile, Delta personnel in Tokyo and no doubt other places were working behind the scenes, busily making alternate travel arrangements for the 200-plus stranded passengers.

Speaking of which, people were collaring every girl in the terminal who was dressed in an airline uniform of any kind, begging for information and advice. There were several airline girls at the gate where our plane had stopped who were on the phones and trying to help us as much as they could, but the bottom line was that we would basically have to wait until Delta personnel flew in from Tokyo in a few hours to find out our next steps.

I don't know why I did it, because I figured there were people on that plane with bigger problems than mine; but at one point I gave in and mentioned to one of the girls at the counter that I was on my way to my father's funeral in Portland. Maybe I thought I could score a few sympathy points, and sympathetic she was while she took some information from me. It seemed, however, that nothing came of it. The cold, hard truth was that I was stuck in the middle of nowhere for the night, right along with everybody else, funeral or no funeral.

Unfortunately, Delta was unable to provide hotel accommodations for most of us on this particular occasion because all the local hotels were nearly full. Oh, remember that typhoon I mentioned? That's the reason the hotels were full, and that's the reason our accommodations consisted of a heavy blanket to use to sleep on the floor of one of the terminals, and our meals consisted of whatever we could buy in the terminal with the ¥1,000 meal vouchers we had been given when we deplaned (which were worth about 10 bucks according to the Japanese girl who handed me mine).

Traveler's tip: If by chance you ever find yourself stranded in the Naha International Airport in Okinawa, just remember one thing: At ¥699, the beef curry is to die for.

After Delta personnel arrived later that evening, there was a man who stayed with us in the terminal armed with a loudspeaker and a laptop, and he was giving out all the up-to-date information he could about various aspects of our situation, and also trying to answer individual questions. After a while, they had to move us en masse into a different terminal since the one we were in was going to close. Later, blankets were passed out (and I mean blankets—not the fuzzy, oversized napkins they use on the planes) and ample amounts of additional hot food, snacks, and beverages were brought in and made freely available to us.

A tip of the hat: Having a commercial airliner filled with hundreds of people stranded in the middle of the ocean is an extraordinarily difficult situation for any airline. And frankly, I got tired of listening to people whine about everything that was being done for them. I just want to say that Delta personnel responded with great professionalism, and went to tremendous lengths to ensure our safety, comfort, and the timely completion of our individual journeys—and I for one greatly appreciate their efforts. Kudos for a job well done.

Around midnight, as things were winding down and many people were starting to settle in to get some rest, I got around to asking the Delta guy about my situation, and he checked on his computer and said it appeared I had been booked on a series of flights that had me going from Tokyo to Portland via San Jose, California and Seattle, Washington. I would arrive in Portland about 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday.

I was overjoyed to hear anything at all, because the absolute worst part of a situation like this is simply not knowing. That's what is so agonizing. You feel so utterly small and helpless—which goes a long way in explaining why God seems to have a penchant for such situations.

I figured if His strong hand and outstretched arm could get the Israelites out of Egypt and all the way to the Promised Land, then I could trust Him to get this Illinois boy out of Okinawa and all the way to Portland.

I immediately got on my smartphone and sent my sister my new itinerary. Of course, my joy was somewhat tempered by the fact that I would miss the visitation on Wednesday, but at least I would be there in time for the funeral on Thursday. She messaged me back and said a late viewing could be arranged, but clearly this new itinerary pretty well messed things up as far as the visitation was concerned. "But I'm gonna make the funeral...after all, that's what counts" I told myself. God had been faithful, even though I had been trying to keep nagging thoughts about the possibility of missing the funeral itself at bay for hours.

I found a spot along a wall in the terminal and stretched out to try and get a little rest on my complimentary blanket, using my carry-on bag as a pillow. It just so happened that my wife had suggested I try one of her carry-ons this time, one that was much softer than the one I normally use. And then it turned out I had to use it as a pillow—imagine that. I thanked God for answering my prayers and moving on my behalf.

Yes! I'm gonna make it! Thank you, Father! Praise your mighty name!

In the morning, they put us all back on the same plane and we continued on to Tokyo. It seems they had been able to fix our plane during the night, and so we wouldn't have to wait for another to be flown in. We arrived in Tokyo a couple of hours later, and one of the first things Delta did after we deplaned was give out more ¥1,000 meal vouchers (this time three) and even a shower voucher, which I wisely chose not to use until I had my flight details officially squared away. As it turned out, I never would have had time.

Delta had a special counter set up just for the people on our flight in Narita International Airport, and there they gave out new travel information and documents to each individual.

Somehow I ended up near the back of the line, which is rather unusual for me since I tend to be extremely focused when I travel, and generally find myself near the head of the pack in airports. So I had plenty of time to stand there and listen as people would occasionally react angrily to their new roundabout itineraries, demanding to be put on direct flights to their destinations. Some were angry enough that they got their way, with Delta agents scrambling to placate them with new arrangements.

I recall one Chinese woman who, after raising a ruckus and being rewarded with a direct flight, walked back along our line beaming with pride, and stopped to discreetly give out some free advice to a gaggle of other middle-aged Asian women who were standing near me, saying things like...

When you get up there, demand to be put on a direct flight! Shout at them! Pound your fist on the counter! That's how you get what you want! See? It worked for me!

And a few did just that. I've never been a demanding type of person, and I wasn't about to get up there and throw a hissy fit to get special treatment. I figured there was no point in standing up there and bullying these nice people who were only trying their best to help us with my most ferocious scowl and tone of voice. Besides...

Who needs lungs full of hot air when you've got the LORD of hosts?

I had the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to fight for me. I figured the Lord had already gone before me just as I had trusted Him to do and had taken care of things, and that settled it. The battle was won. Besides, since I was near the back of the line, I figured the handful of available seats on direct flights to the West Coast would be filled long before I got up there anyway.

Not only that, but thoughts like this occurred to me:

What if I get up there and angrily demand to be put on a direct flight, and as a result it's tough luck for someone who needs it a lot more than me? How would I feel then? What kind of witness would that be?

Surely there were people on our flight who had more urgent reasons to get somewhere by a certain time...and I was apparently already going to make the funeral, and so I was happy to take what God had already provided and leave the rest in His hands. I figured God had done His part—my part was to trust Him, and those words just kept coming back to me again and again.

Trust me...trust me...trust me...

So I finally got up to the counter, with only four or five people left in the line behind me. Trust me. As soon as they saw my name on my documents, before I could even open my mouth, one of the Delta girls came out from behind the counter to speak to me personally. Trust me. She briefly eyed some documents, and then looked at me and said:

Mr. Lauer, I'm putting you on a direct flight to Portland.

It's extremely difficult to describe what went through my spirit over the next couple of seconds, but ball lightning comes close. When I heard those words come out of her mouth, I instantly knew in my spirit that I was watching God at work. I heard another voice in my spirit that said something like this:

See? I asked you to trust me, and you did. Way to go. This is the sort of thing that happens when you just trust me.

As the Delta girl pointed down the passageway and gave me step by step instructions as to what to do and where to go, my exhausted brain struggled to focus. And I gazed in the direction she was pointing partly so she wouldn't see the tears welling in my eyes. And as I disengaged from her, my voice was so choked with emotion that I could barely squeak out a "thank you."

I felt as though I had trusted the Lord for a BMX bicycle, and He had just handed me the keys to a BMW.

The next hour was a technicolor blur (well, more of a technicolor blur than the previous 24 of them had been). The terminal, which was one I had never been in before in spite of dozens of trips through Narita, felt unfamiliar and was extremely crowded. This was probably due to the fact that it just happened to be around a major Chinese holiday, and at one point I got a little confused about where to go, which line to get in, etc.

Knowing I didn't have much time, I zig-zagged through the crowd with growing urgency and uncertainty, frantically trying to figure out where I was supposed to be and which of numerous long lines I should get in.

On two or three occasions, I asked people waiting in what I thought might be the right line, but that only served to confuse things even more since my case was somewhat special and so didn't apply to most other people. As I felt the fear rising, I finally just stopped dead in my tracks and asked the Lord to lead me to the right place.

And I say this before God—it couldn't have been more than four or five seconds before a Delta girl suddenly appeared directly in front of me in the middle of this packed terminal. I got her attention, showed her my documents, she glanced at them, and then she personally escorted me through the pressing throng straight to the place I needed to go so I could get my last-minute seating assignment. And when I finally got an actual seat number, something in my spirit just went click.

I don't pretend to know anything about the inner workings of how airline seats on a commercial flight are assigned, but I hadn't actually been assigned a seat when I had been told I was being put on a direct flight. The girl I had spoken to when I received the direct flight just said they were going to do that. But instead of a seat number, my boarding pass just said something like "Request Seating Assignment" across the top.

So, in my mind, it wasn't until the moment I had been assigned an actual seat with an actual seat number that I knew with absolute 100 percent certainty that I was leaving on that plane.

But what I did know was that God had been watching over me and working things together for my good the entire time, from the moment I left Taiwan—even before I left. (Cushy carry-on? Nice.) God provided for me above and beyond what I had trusted Him for.

The flight from Tokyo to Portland went pretty smoothly, surprisingly enough. They had managed to get me on the same flight I would have taken the previous day, and before I boarded I contacted my sister on my smartphone and let her know my new new itinerary, which would put me in Portland early Wednesday morning. She picked me up, got me home, and I had time to get cleaned up and was able to attend the visitation later that day, not to mention the funeral the following day.

The point is that I trusted God and He provided more than I asked for—all I did was trust Him. On the flight to Portland, however, I actually sensed the Lord chiding me a little bit:

Why didn't you trust me to get you to the visitation on Wednesday in the first place? You only trusted me to get you to the funeral on Thursday...did you think that was the best I could do? Did you think I didn't care if you missed the visitation? Or did you think it was just a wee bit too hard for me to get you there in time for that? Just a little too much to believe for, right? And you were wrong, weren't you?

It brought to my mind the story of Jesus walking on the water, and inviting Peter to get out and join Him. Peter clambers over the side of the boat and begins to walk, and takes his eyes off the Lord and begins to sink. But what I love about this story is the fact that Peter has just risked his life demonstrating miracle-producing faith—more faith than most of us will ever muster in a lifetime—but get a load of what Jesus says to him:

You of little faith, why did you doubt? So compared to Peter, I'm guessing you can hide my faith under a petite-sized thimble. But at least I can better appreciate how Peter must have felt, because God had just given my faith a bit of a workout and, like Peter, I felt I had come a bit short of the standard. In spite of that, however, I knew I had a little more meat on my faith bones.

Now, I don't mean to sound like I'm trying to take all the credit for what the Lord did, like I'm Mr. Mighty Joe Prayer Warrior or something. Hardly. My wife and my younger sister were monitoring the situation online in Taiwan and in the United States, respectively. In fact, there were times when they had more up-to-date information than I did in spite of the fact that I was in the eye of the storm. My sister kept my mother posted, and I have absolutely no doubt that all three were praying for me during the ordeal.

But chiding or no, prayers of others or no, I'm not about to pass up a chance to brag on God.

Trust me

I want to close this out with three things the Holy Spirit brought to my mind about trusting God during the course of my journey and in days following. They are simple things that every believer knows (or should know), but it's nice to take them down off the shelf once in a while and run your fingers over them.

1. God actually wants us to trust Him.

Just as with any caring earthly father, few things give God greater joy than giving good gifts to His children.

Throughout His Word, God virtually cries out to mankind, "Trust me! If you'll only trust me!" Scripture makes it abundantly clear that God wants us to trust Him, and trusting Him for our salvation is only the beginning. After He saves us, He wants to bless us. He wants to give us good gifts. He wants to help us in times of need. He wants to show Himself mighty on our behalf.

But if we don't ask in faith and never trust Him for anything besides our salvation, or we stubbornly persist in living in known sin for too long and allow ourselves to pass through a spiritual tunnel, so to speak, we ourselves limit what He can and will do for us. As is occasionally true in the case of earthly fathers, sometimes the only "gift" God has in store for us is what we need the most: a swift kick in the pants.

Luckily, that's something we have some control over:

If our hearts don't condemn us. Are we walking in fellowship with God? Are we living in obedience to His Word to the best of our ability? OK, maybe not perfectly, but I think you know what I mean. Have we become slack in regard to spiritual things, and allowed our love for God to cool? Have we been taking God for granted? Have we been sorta blowing off that "holiness" thing? It's a simple question:

Do our hearts condemn us?

Because when they do, we always know why they do. And it happens to all of us from time to time. When it feels like our prayers are bouncing off the ceiling, this is the first thing to check. If our hearts condemn us, we need to get that squared away first. Then come back and try again.

Also, notice that God actually wants us to ask. Just passively wanting something to happen or engaging in idle wishful thinking is one thing. Everybody does that—even complete reprobates who arrogantly refuse to so much as acknowledge God's existence. But consciously formulating our needs and desires in the form of direct communication in the spiritual realm with our Heavenly Father is another thing:

Well, there's only one way to "let your requests be made known to God" and that's to pray. Preferably to God.

It doesn't need to be long. It doesn't need to be loud. It doesn't need to be eloquent.

But it needs to be real prayer. And it needs to be to God—not the Great Cosmic Oneness. Not the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Remember: God is the Creator of all things, and He will not be mocked. No matter how much He may care for us like the loving Heavenly Father that He is, He is still God.

But God does want us to trust Him, and gradually bringing us to the point where we do that on a broader, deeper, and more regular basis is a lifelong journey along a highway with plenty of God-ordained potholes.

2. God is not surprised or caught off guard by our problems.

I always laugh when I think about certain situations in the past when some calamity occurred, and I came squawking to God as if He had been asleep at the switch for letting such a thing happen.

Or times when I felt like I had to explain all the details to God so He could understand what needed to be done, because He obviously needed to be apprised of the situation.

Think of it this way:

God saved us so we could do the good works He prepared for us to do. And when did He prepare those good works? In the very beginning.

As an adopted child of God, one who was elected to salvation by an omniscient God before the foundation of the world, the journey of our life was marked out before the world was even created.

Oh, but what if something goes wrong?! What if some accident or some unforeseen event interferes with some of those good works God prepared for us to do?! That might ruin everything!

Really? Do you really think God is that incompetent? The whole idea that God has prepared good works for us to do suggests that He's also aware of certain problems we will struggle with. I wouldn't go so far as to say He prepared them, but He certainly knows about them in advance and uses them for His purposes in our lives, to build and strengthen our faith.

After all, God knew everything from the beginning, good and bad. In fact, I believe at least some of the good works He has prepared for us to do are a natural outgrowth of the "unexpected" trials and tribulations we find ourselves going through, or of those being experienced by others!

Sometimes it's not about us: Never forget that God routinely uses the trials and tribulations that one believer is suffering through to build up the faith and trust of other believers, as well as create opportunities for their good works.

3. God has typically prepared the answer to our prayers in advance.

As a result of no. 2, it is routine for God to set the answer to our prayers in place or in motion before the problem even occurs—before we even know that we need to pray or what to pray for. No matter how desperate the situation may seem to us, there's no drama from God's point of view. God's all over it because He saw it coming all along.

This is without a doubt one of the hardest things for us as human beings locked in our little three-dimensional space-time continuum to get our fleshly little pea-brains around:

God is in no way limited by time and space.

Why should He be? He created both. He sees all and knows all, for all time. It all lies before Him like a panorama:

We need to be reminded once in a while just how incredibly, amazingly awesome God truly is, and I am sure that's one of the reasons why He allows us to experience some of the trouble we do. When we turn to Him and trust Him in our darkest hour of need, God has a golden opportunity to remind us of just exactly that.

The point I want to leave you with is simplicity itself:

The more we trust God, the more
God proves to us we can trust Him.

The more God proves to us we can
trust Him, the more we trust God.

God says "Trust me," so trust Him. Don't hesitate. Make Him the first person you call on, not the last. Be fully prepared to trust Him completely at a moment's notice. Look for opportunities to trust Him—and you won't have to look long.

We should want to be like David. As we all do, David had his flaws—terrible flaws, to be honest. But the Bible describes David as a man after God's own heart. And some of David's psalms give us insight into at least one of the reasons why he was called that:

It really is that simple.

Trust me.

Greg Lauer — SEP '16

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