You Can Trust God With Your Passions

The Bible tells us to trust God with everything. Our head knows that’s all-inclusive, but our heart says it’s OK to squirrel away bits of our life beyond God’s reach. Surely we deserve to be sovereign over something. We shouldn’t need God’s help with everything. In fact, the notion that God wants us to relinquish everything to Him sounds selfish.

Take priorities, for example. Don’t we have the right to set our own priorities?

Well … we have a responsibility to align them with God’s will.

I’ve wrestled with this in a new way since January of this year. Just one month prior, I had moved across town and had finally found a church home. Life was brimming with personal and professional opportunities. I was eager to embrace them all.

Instead, I came out of remission with Lyme disease. Life came to a full stop.

That was the second time since 2017 I’d been out of remission. But this time was far worse than before.

For six months, I struggled to work enough hours of my day job to pay for expensive medicine that insurance didn’t cover. I almost collapsed after I submitted Book 2 of my series to my publisher. Between February and June, I did zero book marketing or faith-based writing. I was too sick. I developed complications and secondary infections. I was ill in a scary new way, with cruel side effects I’d never experienced before. I wondered if I would win the fight.

Why am I telling you this? Because I learned in a deeper way that you can trust God with your passions.

Jim Denison put it this way: “God has a purpose for us that transcends anything we can fathom … He sees the parade from the grandstand, not the knothole in the fence [our vantage point].”

Even so, I verbally kicked God in the shins and asked why He would allow this devastating setback. If someone had said, “it’s all part of God’s plan,” I might have smacked them. I was not only desperately ill, I was grieving all the losses that accompanied it.

I battled despair. I reminded myself how God had gone before me, protected and provided for me in the past twelve years.

Remembrance helped. What He did before, He could do again, for He says, “Remember the things I have done in the past. For I alone am God! I am God, and there is none like me.” (Isaiah 46:9, NLT)

But comfort also came from an unexpected source: a social media post by Tavia Hunt, wife of Kansas City Chiefs CEO Clark Hunt. Her family lost a young cousin in the Camp Mystic flood. Despite that crushing loss, Tavia wrote: “If your heart is broken, I assure you God is near, he is gentle with your wounds. And he is still worthy, even when your soul is struggling to believe it. Trust doesn’t mean you’re over the pain; it means you’re handing it to the only One who can hold it with love and restore what was lost. For we do not grieve as those without hope.”

Give God everything. He’s the only One with hands big enough to catch all your tears while He holds and molds your life into something amazing.

God isn’t obligated to make good on your passions the way you think they should play out. Remember David’s passion to build a resting place for the Ark of the Covenant (i.e., the first Temple)? When God said “no,” David had already spent years planning the project. But he didn’t pitch a fit. Instead, he poured his energy into commissioning his son Solomon for the job. David relinquished his cherished blueprints. He wholeheartedly commended Solomon to the people and charged them to keep God’s commandments. Then David gave generously from his personal wealth to help fund the project. (See 1 Chronicles 28.)

What is your passion?

It’s whatever is closest to your heart. That’s why it’s so hard to hand it over to God.

For some, it’s playing for an elite sports team, garnering a TED talk, or snagging a dream job.

For me, it means trusting Him with my writing careers and all the opportunities I anticipated finally enjoying. He’s short on sharing details, but big on promising that He has His best in mind for me. And you.

Whatever your passion is, God asks you to trust Him with it—even if it means rearranging your priorities. And, for reasons no one will fully fathom this side of eternity, everything works better when you leave your life in His capable hands.

Father, it’s hard to trust You with the matters closest to my heart. Give me the courage to let go of everything I think is rightfully mine, including my passions and priorities. Although I may be afraid to release them to You, I trust YOU. Do what You will with my life. It’ll turn out different than I can imagine, but it’ll be better when You’re in the center of it. I pray this in the power of Your Name. Amen.