Where is your faith?

I was promoted to a team lead position at the beginning of this year. One of my new responsibilities is to be in the rotation to have the on-call phone. On Friday I was officially given the duty until this upcoming Friday. For eight years I have been working in child welfare. I have become quite comfortable working in chaos and crisis. I have grown accustomed to individuals who are hostile, traumatized, untruthful, and scared. As a caseworker, my primary task everyday is to problem solve. Yet, a mere 25 minutes into my weekend the on-call phone rang. Immediately I felt my heart rate increase. Once the ringing stopped I stared at the phone for a solid minute to see if a voicemail notification was going to pop up. And that's when I realized that I was full of anxiety. I was operating under the thought that whatever calls come in I will be ill equipped. Why? It's because of the unknown.

Now my own work cell rings continuously nearly 7 days a week. And I have never felt the kind of nervousness that had just surged through my body. This is due to a combination of things. First, with the exception of a few scenarios I can almost always guess what the person calling me is going to discuss. Since I visit my families so often, it doesn't take long to learn things about them. I learn which individuals are going to call regularly as a means to vent. I learn which individuals will wait until things are in shambles before they ask for help. I learn which ones need constant reassurance due to fear. I think you get the idea. Second, I have been doing my current job for just shy of two years. In the child welfare world that's actually a decent amount of time. In other words I don't need my supervisor to give me solutions like someone newer does. My point is I have confidence as it pertains to my daily role.

I surveyed the items that accompanied the on-call phone. This included a charging cord, notepad, employee phone list and a piece of paper entitled "Procedures". And let me just tell you the procedures are bare bones. USE CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS is typed twice. Since I work with families prior to court intervention, I do not have a great deal of experience when it comes to persuading a foster parent that has had enough of the child or children in their home. And unfortunately, the majority of calls after hours are just that. They are calls for kids to be moved ASAP. And sometimes the caregiver is so fed up they want you to get the child regardless of whether there is a new home to take them to.

I thought the mixture of all of the above things is what led to my worry. Then I had a revelation that stopped me in my tracks. What I was really dealing with was a lack of faith. Whenever life so much as sightly veers off it's regular course, we feel inconvenienced. We, as people, especially Americans, desire to have a life of comfort. Dare I say we sometimes revert back to child-like behavior when we don't get our way? We sometimes spend more time planning for things to fail instead of planning for them to succeed.

Luke 17:5-6 NLT

The apostles said to the Lord, "Show us how to increase our faith." The Lord, answered, "If you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, 'May you be uprooted and be planted in the sea,' and it would obey you!"

As someone that grew up in church, I can't even tell you how many times someone used an actual mustard seed to give the necessary visual to go along with these verses. And yet, in this moment, I cannot help but think about how sad it is that there have been many times when I have failed to muster up that tiny amount of faith. Heck, I was failing to do so when I first had the responsibility of the on-call phone. I was trying to brace myself for the worst case scenario. I had already convinced myself that every phone call would be a catastrophe. I believed that my eight years of child welfare experience would amount to nothing. Can we say dramatic? I was wasting my time worrying about things that may not even occur.

When you accept Christ, you are given a new heart. (Ezekiel 36:26 ESV "Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.") I often wish I had also been given a new mind. My thoughts are always the beginning of my undoing. And that is precisely why Proverbs 3:5 says, Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. Our minds are fully flesh. We need the Holy Spirit to filter our thoughts in order for us to have a fighting chance when it comes to the things we battle.

If God's response to be me was based on my faith instead of His faithfulness, I would have been a goner years ago. I have had many moments where I was reckless with fiances. I have had many moments where I have squandered time and passed on God's orchestrated opportunities. I have failed family and friends more than I have blessed them. Yet, despite my poor decision making skills, God has always pulled me through. He has never left me stranded alone like I deserve. As Christians, we sometimes only think about faith in a much larger context. Things that we believe require faith much larger than the size of a mustard seed. Things like mission trips, being a full time missionary, stepping into a leadership position at church, etc. But what about the things that we can encounter on any given day? Do we wager our trust in God to the same extent when it comes to needing to have a tough conversation with someone we love? What about when we need to take a moral stand at work? Or, when we need to accept that some friendships have to change because they are stunting your growth in Christ. Do we apply faith in these situations? Or, do we hold on with all of our own strength in hopes that we can change these situations by coming up with another option that does lead to us being uncomfortable.

When I actually took the time to stop and reflect about my over the top anxiety related to the on-call phone, here's what I was reminded of. I was reminded of all the times I have dealt with a crisis at work. The times someone called me as their main source to help them through the obstacle they were faced with. The times I have walked into homes to conduct a visit only to be immediately met with chaos. The times I have had to physically stand between two adults that were about to hit each other. The time I had to initiate a Baker Act for a young mother. The times I have derailed my own life because I wanted to be selfish. And all of these reminders share something in common. In the initial moments I couldn't conceive how it would work out in an ending that wouldn't bring more challenges, frustration and heartache. All though the moments I described shocked me, they did not shock God. He gave me what I needed to make it through them.

The reality is that whatever heartbreak, destruction, obstacle, or horror we encounter either by our own doing or not; God can and will handle it. I imagine that while we in our own depravity conjuring up all of the possible ways something will fail, God is saying "oh my dear you just wait and see what I will do." God doesn't need me to have faith in order for Him to move. However, I do believe we can miss out on opportunities by choosing not to exercise faith. And if nothing else we will keep ourselves tormented if we elect to wallow in fear and opt for comfort instead of taking the necessary step forward. It's not our job to know how things will turn out. And quite frankly, if we knew exactly how things would end up we would probably choose God less than we already do. I mean think about what it was like to be a teenager or young adult. You thought you knew it all. And with all of your nonexistent knowledge and wisdom you made decisions. Decisions that your parents probably urged you to avoid. Only for you to pridefully walk down a path that resulted in the exact ending you had already been warned about. Oh, maybe that was just me.

It doesn't matter if it's what we would consider to be the minutiae of everyday life or something that could completely shift all that we have grown accustomed to; as a Christian we should exercise faith. We should find our confidence in the fact that when we bet on God, the odds are most certainly in our favor. Even if the outcome isn't what we desire, we can trust that He does not waste anything. Everything, whether pleasant or unpleasant, can be used by Him if we would simply relinquish the control.

Song: I Don't Wanna Go

Artist: Chris Renzema

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZ_LUCVdh-o

Song: Confident

Artist: Steffany Gretzinger

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3qGssYNdkU

Matthew 6:25-34