How often have you heard somebody say that they "trust God", only to see that their actions don't quite match this philosophy?
Instead of turning to prayer when they hit a rough patch, they turn to money, alcohol, Netflix, ice cream, social media and other worldly pleasures in order to self-medicate their anxiety, pain or uncertainty.
It's easy to say "in God we trust", but much more difficult to put this philosophy into practice when we need to. For me, the time to trust God whole-heartedly without wavering is now.
Tuesday I will be undergoing thyroid removal surgery in order to treat an overactive thyroid condition called "Grave's disease". Graves' has greatly impacted my life for the last two and a half years. It complicated my senior year of college and has kept me from pursuing a full-time job following graduation. None of this was in my plans.
Since I was diagnosed in September 2016, I have been on a medication called "PTU" to treat the disease. My hope had always been that after enough time of taking PTU had passed, the disease would go into remission, as it does in about 50% of patients. Once again, the plan I had sketched out for myself in my head failed. The medication has helped, but it hasn't eliminated the disease from my life, and even if the disease were to go into remission through this form of treatment, it can always come back.
My plan B, one that I had previously dreaded, has become a reality. The surgery that will take place next week will remove my thyroid entirely, and I will live the rest of my life without a gland that is essential to our bodies. In its place, I will receive synthetic thyroid hormone tablets that will perform the necessary functions; I'll take these each day for the rest of my life.
If I'm being honest, the idea of surgery has scared me for quite some time. What if something goes wrong when the surgeon creates the incision in my throat area, and I experience a permanent hoarseness in my voice as a result? Or worse, what if my vocal cords are accidentally damaged to the point where I can no longer speak? Both dangers have less than a 1% chance of taking shape, but that .01% is enough to scare anybody that records podcasts regularly and is pursuing a career in various forms of journalism.
What if there are long-term risks and dangers of living on the supplemental hormones, or living without a thyroid?
By undergoing the surgery, I am putting my life in the hands of somebody else. The moment I realized this is the same moment I realized that I like being in control. I like being safe. I don't like putting my fate in someone else's hands. So for me, this surgery is a true measure of faith.
As a born-again Christian, I've constantly preached the message of "trust God." As Christians, it's ingrained in our heads, but is it ingrained in our hearts, as it should be? Is trusting God our first reaction when things fall out of our control?
As I pose these questions, I want to look at some scripture. Proverbs 16, verses 1-9 are filled with rich wisdom on this subject. For the sake of time, I'm going to shorten this passage to just a few verses.
1 The plans of the heart belong to man,
but the answer of the tongue is from the Lord.
2 All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes,
but the Lord weighs the spirit.
Fast-forward to verse 9...
9 The heart of man plans his way,
but the Lord establishes his steps.
Throughout the entire Bible, God tells us not to fear, and that His ways are higher than our ways (Isaiah 55:8-9). In this instance in Proverbs, it is spelled out that though we as humans want to establish our own plans, God's sovereignty reigns supreme. Oftentimes the goals we set pale in comparison to the wonder that God has in store for us, whether it be here on Earth, or within the eternity that awaits us.
My plan to get over this disease may have sounded great to me. But what if the disease had gone into remission, only to return and knock me back to square one in a couple of years? What if that were to happen at a much less convenient time in my life, keeping me from accepting a dream job offer? What if the surgery is an inevitability and my best bet is to face it head-on, so that I can finally be free to move on with life?
The bottom line is that sometimes the way we envision things to work out is different from the way God knows they would actually work out. As the protective Father that He is, He keeps us from harm. He overrules us sometimes and His plan proves to be far greater than what we had envisioned.
In the book of Jonah, God physically corrects the direction of Jonah's voyage. Jonah wanted to be safe, and God wanted Jonah to preach the gospel to one of the world's most hostile cities. Had Jonah been able to continue on his own path, one of the greatest revivals in the history of the world would never have taken place.
Trusting God isn't always safe; in fact it's often dangerous and can sometimes put us at risk. But it is always good. There's great comfort and peace in knowing that God is on the throne.
So here I am, just days away from surgery, taking a risk and doing my best to fully trust God. At least it didn't require three days in the belly of a whale to get me here.
Follow me on Twitter @TheJackVita.
(Image via http://allofus.info/2018/10/aslan-and-your-calling/, quote in the image from C.S. Lewis' The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe)
