Trust His Heart

Once upon a time, a long time ago, I went to a concert at Houston's First Baptist.  It wasn't anything that I had planned to do but my friend Peggy asked me to go hear it with her.  After offering every weak excuse that exists, she finally told me I was going!  I'm so glad she was insistent.  The concert, Azuza Pacific Choir led by Dr. Gary Bonner.  You see, I didn't want to go because I was kind of mad at God.  Wasn't it enough that I would still grace His presence with my Sunday morning going through the motion attendance?  It also seemed that and mistakenly so, that God was mad at me right back.  Just because I had cut off communication I wrongly thought that God had done the same thing.  This was a difficult season of life.  Roy and I flew through the recession of 1983.  It didn't affect us one bit, we had jobs and we were making a nice income.  We were able to go and do a lot of fun things.  The economy began recovering nicely and Roy had applied to and was accepted to law school.  Oh yea, we were on our way.  But then the unthinkable happened in the midst of a recovering economy.  Roy was laid off.  He had been asked to sign off on some paperwork and as an officer of the company it would have held him personally responsible.  He knew he couldn't sign the paperwork, so as they say in cliche' world, the rest is history.  At the time we thought the lay off was hitting us really hard, mainly due to the fact he would be loosing this company car.  Otherwise his severance package was actually rather generous in hindsight, but while in the middle of this, it wasn't enough.  People who we had considered close friends were not sympathetic or compassionate in their response to the news.  That hurt was almost worse than the loss of the job.  Now Roy, he was optimistic and trusted God that He would provide, and I on the other hand took the afore mentioned stance of mad and God is mean.  To be totally honest I was mad at just about everyone and everything.  Mad at God, mad at Roy, mad at friends, and even mad at strangers.  I remember sitting in the parking lot of the grocery store and watching people go into the store who were dressed in business clothes and be angry because they had jobs.  It was not a fun time to be around me unless you were with me in public.  I could turn the ol' "fun" personality on and as soon as I was "off stage" there would be a return to the mad, angry and hurt.  So there is the background and the story of why I didn't want to go to some dumb concert and hear college students sing about the unconditional love of God or the faithfulness of God.


I don't remember many of the songs they sang in concert that night except for one.  Through all the anger and hurt, words from a song pierced my spirit, melted my cold heart and unleashed emotions I hadn't given into for a long time.  There was such a warmth invading me and I could hear in my spirit God saying, I'm not mad at you, trust Me in the journey ahead.  After the concert Peggy and I were heading toward the CD table to look at the selections.  I asked her the title of the song about God not being mean.  She looked at me and said I don't remember any song about God not being mean and she asked me to repeat some of the lyrics.  Well between my sad ability of lyric and note reciting, Peggy, the college student selling CD's and I finally came up with the title of the song, Trust His Heart. 

All things work for our good

though sometimes we can't see how they could

struggles that break our hearts in two

sometimes blinds us to the truth

Our Father knows what's best for us

His ways are not our own

So when your pathway grows dim, and you just can't see Him

Remember you're never alone

God is too wise to be mistaken

God is too good to be unkind

So when you don't understand

When you don't see His plan

When you can't trace His hand

Trust His heart

He sees the master plan

And He holds our future in His hands

So don't live as those who have no hope

All our hope is found in Him

We see the present clearly

But He sees the first and the last

And like a tapestry He's weaving you and me to someday be just like Him

God is too wise to be mistaken

God is too good to be unkind

So when you don't understand

When you don't see His plan

When you can't trace His hand

Trust His heart

He alone is faithful and true

He alone knows what is best for you

So when you don't understand

When you don't see His plan

When you can't trace His hand trust His heart

That song in a concert I didn't want to attend was the turning point in that difficult season of life.  That song began a work of restoration in my life and turned my attention off the circumstances.  It was the catalyst that released me from the lie I'd believed and the start of a new beginning in my relationship with the Lord.  That CD that the song was on wore out because I kept it on repeat all the time on our lovely 80's boom box. 



This week as the choir and orchestra practiced for the concert last night at Broadway Baptist Church the memory of that concert long ago prompted me to pray for anyone who might be in attendance there that was upset, mad and angry over circumstances going on in their lives.  All week I have been praying for that person who sat there, not really wanting to be there.  When we made eye contact with the audience I was asking God to open my eyes to that person who was just like me those many years ago.  Then after a moving testimony from a couple in our choir and orchestra of God's faithfulness on a very hard, emotion wrenching path, we sang I Believe in You.  Monica sang the solo both in English and Spanish.  I know those words  echo the same meaning as Trust His Heart. I know God's Holy Spirit did His work and spoke in the still small voice that is louder than the chaotic thoughts and feelings which rage inside and sometimes on the outside of us.  Lord may much fruit be born from last night in all of us who were there.