Not to long ago I felt the Lord laying it on my heart to share my full testimony on our ministry website so I decided to create an 8 part series. I shared it a while back and it can still be found on the page if you are interested in reading it. I knew for this go around He was telling me to go deeper and slower as I processed through writing it. I wasn’t sure if writing it was for anyone else or if it was just for me. As I was writing He brought back to the forefront so many lessons He taught me along the way. Healing is a process. It is layer by layer and takes time, effort, and dedication. 

Proverbs 3:5-6 Trust in and rely confidently on the Lord with all your heart
And do not rely on your own insight or understanding. In all your ways know and acknowledge and recognize Him, and He will make your paths straight and smooth [removing obstacles that block your way].

God gave me this scripture years before, around 2021, when I was going through a nasty divorce. It was a very difficult time and I was laying in bed at my parents house when I felt the Lord lay this scripture on my heart. From that moment forward I called it my life verse. However, there is a huge difference between knowing the Word of God and applying it to our lives.

In 2020 as I was walking through the process of healing and deliverance the Lord gave me a vision of me standing at a crossroad. I could see two clear paths and I had to choose which one I was going to take.

This would be a good time to take a pause and go back to why I titled this post, “Questioning God”. For as long as I can remember I had questioned God about why I had been abused, why others were abused, and why He didn’t stop it. I felt like I had to have the answer in order to fully heal. When people asked me why I thought God did not intervene when children were abused I had all the same answers as everyone else. I would tell them that we live in a fallen world, we have free will, and that it is the enemy who causes pain. Even though I said these things I still did not understand why bad things happened. I knew the Bible said that God was a loving and kind Father, but the answers I came up with just never sat well with me. I had this internal struggle that I could never seem to break free from.

I always felt like I needed the answers so that I could have peace. I felt like my healing hinged on getting the answers I wanted. I had figured out for myself what I needed and what it was going to take for my healing. All the while I was telling everyone, including myself, that Proverbs 3:5-6 was my life verse.

I didn’t want to be irreverent toward God, but I also wanted what I wanted. On one hand I was speaking my life verse and on the other I was telling Him what I needed. I was stuck in this pattern for years.

There is a huge difference between having the head knowledge of the Word/Bible and allowing it to change us. I can read about how to create a 5 star meal. I can know about every ingredient needed, what to set my stove temp, all the cooking utensils needed, and even how the meal should look. However, none of that makes me be able to cook the meal. It isn’t until I apply what I learned that I can actually claim to being able to produce a 5 star meal. It is the same way with anything else. We can learn facts all day long, but until we apply the knowledge it is really just head knowledge.

Back to the two paths God showed me. One path was me continuing to question Him and refusing to move forward without my answers. The other was a path of surrender. It would require laying down my questioning, stop relying on my own understanding, and walking by faith. The first choice would cause me to continue doing life as I had always done it and get the same results I had always gotten. The second path would lead to victory and freedom.

It would seem like that would be a really easy choice, but it wasn’t. The questions had created deep bondages in my life and I thought I HAD to have the answers. I thought I deserved them and could not heal without them. The thing I wanted and thought I needed had turned into chains that were holding me hostage.

I decided to choose to release my questions and surrender them fully to God. That means I totally released it—the NEED to know, the having to know, and I let it go. In that moment I knew that I would never pick it up again and anytime it tried to slip back in I would have to resist it, command it to go, and choose faith instead.

We are given God’s character in the Bible and we either choose, by faith, to stand on His Word or our own understanding. It is either or.

God gave me Proverbs 3:5-6 years ago to prepare me for the moment in 2020 when He sat two choices in front of me. After many years of seeking my own understanding I finally decided to stand on His Word, walk by faith, and stop leaning on my own understanding. It brought so much freedom to my life.

Now when people ask me why a good God would let bad things happen I tell them that I don’t know, but I don’t have to know because I do not lean on my own understanding. Instead, I choose to walk by faith knowing that God is making my path straight. I look at life, and all situations, through the lens of His truth and not the other way around. God is faithful and I refuse to entertain anything else.

The voice of the enemy tries to bring the questions back and as soon as that thought comes I verbally command it to go in the name of Jesus and it has no choice but to obey.

I want to encourage you to read, study, and apply Proverbs 3:5-6 to your life. I promise you, it is life changing.

Link to Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZT-pNlMG7zg&t=1007s

Blessings,

Nichole Henson

Fullness of Joy Ministry

Ways to Connect with Fullness of Joy Ministry

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