The Mindset Shift of Trust Over Suspicion

[00:00:02] Powered by Riverside and Balance. [00:00:14] Well, welcome back. I am your host. My name is Shann Estrange Williams, and you are listening to Grace and Grit Mindset podcast. [00:00:25] Super excited, as usual, to share my heart with you, to share what I feel like the Lord has given me this week. [00:00:33] Today is Thursday, and it's, like, exceptionally rainy here in East Texas, which has been the norm for, like, the past week. And I think we're forecast to have, like, 10 more days of rain. Yay. [00:00:46] So despite all of that sad dreariness outside, I have decided to just come before you and just share some encouragement and some scriptures and some thoughts about what I want to talk about today in an effort to always help you shift your mindset. Because so much of our struggles, so much of our lack of victory in our life maybe would be a good way to say it is so related and rooted in a faulty mindset. [00:01:22] So if you can figure out and. And you can do this with scripture and the Lord and the Holy Spirit leading you, but if you can learn how to shift your mindset to what God wants you to think, which is what we're going to do in this podcast, if you can do that, then you can absolutely change your life. You can absolutely change things that are driving you insane, that you feel like you could never get victory over, or maybe you're just not ending up in the place that you want to end up. That you feel like God has told you. Sometimes it's because, you know, there's a timing and there's a season for everything, but sometimes it's because we are not on board with the Lord. [00:02:05] I didn't mean to run, but I did. We are not on board with the Lord. We are not tracking with Him. We're not learning the things he wants us to learn. [00:02:14] So my goal with this podcast is to maybe expedite that if we can. If we can learn things so that we don't have to spend 40 years in the wilderness trying to figure things out. Does that make sense to anyone? Does anyone relate to that? [00:02:31] So if you are tired of going around in circles in the wilderness, raise your hand. [00:02:36] And you better believe my. My hand is raised, too. Because, listen, there's nothing more horrible than staying in a season way past what God intended for you to stay, you know, in it for. For just a small amount of time. We can drag something out forever, can't we? And make a situation that was already hard, make it absolutely miserable. And I'm thinking as I'm saying that of course, you know about the Israelites and God, you know, he removes them forcefully in the Exodus where he has the Passover and Pharaoh, you know, refuses to let them go. And so God does it by force and it's to take them to something better, right? He wants to take them into their promised land. [00:03:29] But there's this time frame in the middle where he's trying to teach them some things. And if they'd only caught it quicker, if they'd only realized, if they'd learned how to rest, they could have gotten through that so much faster. If they'd have learned to be thankful instead of complaining, if they would have trusted him, if they would have had faith in him, but they did not know him. [00:03:55] And I think that's us in a nutshell. So many times. [00:04:00] If we really knew him and we trusted him, which today is about trust, then we could take that season that. Yes, it's not fun. It's not fun to go through a season of testing and trying, is it? But you don't have to drag that thing out forever. You can learn the principle that God's trying to teach you so that you can move on. So today I'm going to talk about the mindset shift of trust over suspicion. [00:04:30] Suspicion. I don't know how many of you can relate, but I, I think that anxiety and suspicion go hand in hand, right? So if you're a female, I know you can relate to what I'm about to say. Probably there's that time of the month where, you know, man, you are not yourself and you are. I don't know if you can relate to this, but I am highly suspicious. [00:04:58] Lots more anxiety, struggling more with depression for those few days, and it is horrible. But when it becomes like a pattern in your life where it's not just related to your female cycle, but it's like you're just suspicious all the time, then that becomes a situation where you can't move forward with God, right? Because you're constantly putting him in the same category as maybe someone who's failed you before. Because think about it, why would you be suspicious of God? [00:05:36] Well, number one, you don't know him, right? Because if you really knew him, you would know he's trustworthy. [00:05:43] There are a ton of scriptures that back up his trustworthiness. But you know, and I'm going to read those for you. But you. It has to be experiential as well. Like, it can't just be that it's, it's somebody else's experience that he was trustworthy. Yes. I love the Scriptures that point back to. Because they. They reaffirm to us that he is trustworthy, that he. [00:06:04] That other people before us could trust him, and that he was faithful. Right? But you also have to have an experience or experiences with him to prove his trustworthiness, his faith faithfulness to you. But I want to read a few scriptures for you today. And it's crazy because this morning my husband and I got up, as we normally do. Our custom is to read, you know, drink some coffee. We read our Bible together, we pray. [00:06:33] And today we kept getting just this, the word of obedience. And those that love him, obey him. [00:06:42] And so usually at the end of our time together, when we get done praying and all that, we'll spend about two or three minutes in meditation, we'll set a timer, close our eyes, and he and I just meditate on the Lord. [00:06:56] Nothing weird. This is totally biblical to meditate. Scripture says to meditate on him. So that's what we do. And we just set a timer. We do it. And so I was seeing a tree, and I was seeing a tree that was rooted and grounded, and it was by the water, and it never withered in every season it kept producing fruit. And so immediately when I'm seeing this in my mind, I'm thinking of the passage of scripture that says that. There's a couple of. Couple of them that say that. But I want to read you Jeremiah 17, 7 and 8, because this is what I was seeing. Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. [00:07:38] They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green. And it's not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit. [00:07:54] Wow, isn't that a fantastic scripture? So because this person trust in the Lord, not only can they withstand heat in times of drought, because its leaves remain evergreen, because it's planted by the river, it doesn't have to get anxious. [00:08:19] It doesn't have to worry about what's coming, what's the economy doing, what lack is there in my life, what terrible thing is going on. [00:08:30] Everything around them can be so dysregulated, which is, you know, drought, heat, fire, wind. [00:08:41] Those are the things that trees have to endure sometimes, right? [00:08:45] Doesn't matter that that's going on, because this person, they're trusting in the Lord and they are like a tree that's planted by the river, by the water, and they've sent their roots out by the stream. So they're never in lack. They're never in lack because they always have that direct connection to the water, which is what sustains their life. [00:09:09] But it's this trust factor that's. [00:09:13] That's initiating this whole cycle is there's a trust that these people have that they plant their roots down spiritually in the Lord. And they know that whatever's coming their way, that their God is faithful, they can trust him. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what terrible things might be going on in the economy. The stock market could crash, you could lose your job. You could have to file bankruptcy. Heaven forbid. You could, who knows, have a huge family rift that just kind of fractures your entire family. It could be a disease, maybe, maybe you get a horrible diagnosis. [00:09:53] It could be so many things. [00:09:56] But yet, if you trust the Lord, you can still bear fruit in that season, which is crazy, right? [00:10:03] Not only do you survive, but you bear fruit. And I just really want to hit this home with you. That part of what God wants to do in my life and your life is he wants you to go through a season that's really hard in such a way that your light shines before men and they see your good deeds and they glorify him. [00:10:27] Okay? So you're going through things that probably would take a lot of people out. Like they would either walk away from God or they would just barely get through it. God's requiring more of us. He's like, I don't want you just to get through it. I actually want you to bear fruit in this season of this really hard season. But you can only do it in if you trust in him, because you have to know that his purpose and his plans are higher than ours and that he's faithful and that he won't leave you and that he's got a purpose behind this. So trust is kind of the bedrock of faith. And we talked about faith last week. But honestly, you can't have faith unless you first have trust. [00:11:13] You can't have trust unless you actually know someone well enough to trust them. You have to know their character. You have to be in situations with them so you can see how they respond. You have to see their behavior. You have to evaluate it. You have to walk through some things with this person to know whether or not you can trust them. And then once the trust is established, then you can have faith. [00:11:37] And whatever it is that they're saying or doing or they're saying they're going to do, right? Their plans towards you. [00:11:45] And so that's what God wants to establish. He wants you to have trust over suspicion of Him. Now, when you are suspicious of someone, it's either because A, maybe you've been traumatized in the past by someone else and you're pulling that trauma into your relationship with God, or B, maybe this person has, maybe this person has done something that has failed you in the past. Well, I've got news for you. Every single one of us are going to fail each other. That's just, that's just a byproduct of being a human being. We're not perfect. [00:12:19] We, we strive to be like Christ, obviously. We allow the Holy Spirit to work in us and, and form our character and change us in ways that we cannot do for ourselves, right? But even in that, we're going to have moments where we fail someone, even unintentionally, right? [00:12:34] But suspicion towards God is like we're, we are saying, God, I'm suspicious of you because I've seen what other people have done. Or maybe it was your earthly father. So now you are suspicious of your heavenly Father because the only example you've ever had was an earthly parent, and maybe they didn't do a great job. [00:12:58] And so now you don't trust God. [00:13:00] So that's going to prevent you from entering into the fullness of some things that God wants to do for you. So you have to have this mindset shift. [00:13:09] And it's not something that you can just mentally ascend to. You can't just one day say, okay, I'm going to change my mind about this. What you have to start with the desire for sure. [00:13:21] But you have to have the Holy Spirit helping you to reveal to you what are the lies that you're believing about God and why you can't trust him. [00:13:31] Has he done things in the past that disappointed you? I can relate to that. [00:13:36] A lot of you, if you've been following me at all, know a little bit of my story about thinking I was called to be this huge Christian music artist and going down that road only to find that at the end of it, that was not God's call for my life. And, and so after those doors shut in my life and I get released from a label and I, I, I'm no longer touring and that dream of being an artist is, is dying. [00:14:01] Which took a long time, by the way. [00:14:04] I was like super suspicious of God for a really long time because I'm like, okay, well, I thought you gave me that dream and I thought you told me to pursue it. And look where we are now look where we are. I don't know if I can trust you. [00:14:20] And of course I was wrong. [00:14:22] Of course I was. You know, I think in our immaturity, when God gives us a glimpse maybe of our future or maybe something he wants us to do, or I think maybe we don't understand it. And so we kind of put our own spin on it. And so then we take that dream and it becomes an idol. And we're. Because we're like, I have to do this for God, right? I have to do this. He's called me to do this and I will stop at nothing to get this done. Which, by the way, is not the way that God works. He enables you. Jesus said, my yoke is easy, my burden is light. [00:14:57] You know, yoke yourself with him. He's like, come unto me all you who are weary and heavy laden. I will give your, give you rest, Take my yoke upon you. For my yoke is easy, my burden is light. And so what he's saying is, hey, when you start to work with me, in partnership with me, it's not going to be a super heavy burden down thing where you're going to feel like you have to strive all the time and you have to work really hard. [00:15:24] That is so not the gospel. And that's something I had to learn. [00:15:30] But because I didn't understand my dream and I didn't understand the way that God works, it made me suspicious of anything else. It even made me suspicious of like, could I even really hear God's voice anymore? Because if I had heard God's voice in the first place, how did I end up here? [00:15:46] Is anybody relating to that? Like, you thought God said something and so you do it out of what you think is obedience, but it turns out completely different. [00:15:55] And you know what? You're not alone. Because sometimes I think it's just about the obedience. Sometimes God just tells you to obey and you don't get to see the fruit of it. You just don't. Maybe your obedience was for someone else to see and it changed their life. Who knows? [00:16:12] And I know that the enemy would like to tell me and he would like to tell you that all those things that you did that you thought didn't matter, he would like to tell you that they didn't matter. But I still know that even even though I didn't go as far as I wanted to go with what I thought was my dream from the Lord, I still touched thousands of people and I obeyed God. Now, was I disappointed? Yes. [00:16:39] Was I Suspicious of God? Yes. Was I suspicious? That I suspicious that I could even hear Him? Absolutely. And it's. It took me years to stop living in that place of such grief and depression and suspicion of God and just, like, not trusting him and just realizing that it was probably my immaturity that caused a lot of that. [00:17:04] Right. I mean, you think about Joseph, you think he had one idea in his head of what his destiny was going to be, and it looked so very different. [00:17:13] Right. In his dreams, in the beginning, he's having these dreams, and he is exalted above his brothers, and his brothers are bowing down before him. [00:17:24] So of course he puts his own spin on what that probably could have meant. Scripture doesn't say it, but obviously he bragged a lot or his brothers wouldn't. Wouldn't have been like, oh, my gosh, let's just get rid of him. Throw him in the pit. You know? [00:17:37] So probably more than likely had his own spin. And I'm sure he ends up. [00:17:42] He ends up getting sold in Potiphar's house. And then from Potiphar's house, he goes to the prison, and then he's trapped there for a really long time. And I'm sure he gets suspicious of the Lord because he's like, okay, what you said to me is not matching where I am. [00:17:58] But I believe that there comes a place in our maturing with the Lord, and if we continue to press in to know him and we move beyond our feelings, that just like for Joseph, it was the same for me, it could be the same for you, that you just get to a place where you realize that, you know what? [00:18:19] I still trust him. He's so good. Maybe I misunderstood, but that doesn't change the fact that he's good and that he's faithful and that he wants me in every season to bear fruit, and that he really does want to do something great with my life. [00:18:34] I love Proverbs 3, 5, and 6. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. [00:18:42] In all your ways, submit to him, and he will make your path straight. And that's so much of what we do, is we lean into our own understanding. [00:18:51] And it never takes us down a good road, does it? It always ends up in us thinking we're right and God's wrong, which is ridiculous, right? But we. We honestly think it, because we're like, well, if it had been up to me, I would have done this. But it's not up to you and it's not up to me. It's up to him. [00:19:11] And our job is to. [00:19:13] Even in these moments of disappointment, even in these moments of being frustrated a little bit or hurting, it's okay to cry out to the Lord and tell him, you're hurting, but it's not okay to stay in a place of maybe anger with him, or maybe like, you know, I'm just done and I don't trust you anymore. [00:19:33] Because you have to know that if you're in a season where it's not beautiful, you have to know that he's going to make it beautiful in the end. That is what he does. He is an artist. [00:19:48] Just look at creation. [00:19:50] He's an artist. He doesn't make ugly things. [00:19:54] He makes everything beautiful in its time. Ecclesiastes 3. He makes everything beautiful in its time. [00:20:02] Everything. That means you and me. That means the plans he has for us. Perhaps he's just getting you ready for that plan. [00:20:11] Maybe he could. He couldn't push you into that thing yet because you aren't ready. Because you don't understand. Because maybe in your immaturity, you would misuse it. [00:20:20] Maybe in your immaturity, what he meant for you to use to bless other people, you would just hoard. Who knows, right? We all. We all do these things and we don't know why. [00:20:32] We don't know why he maybe withheld, withholds things, or why he maybe shuts a door. When you thought, well, I thought I was supposed to go this way, but you just shut the door in my face, right? [00:20:43] It's okay. He's still good. He's good. This is the one thing I know that he is good. [00:20:50] And I. I will go to my grave saying, he's good. [00:20:54] Even though things in my life don't always look good. Even though there's moments in my life where it looks like. [00:21:04] It looks like I have been forsaken. [00:21:07] Or maybe in your life, there's these moments where you feel like he's forsaken you, but he hasn't. [00:21:16] And he's good. And in the end, if you'll stay with him, if you'll continue to trust, if you'll continue to walk with him, you'll be like a tree who's planted by the water that sends out your roots. By the streaming you do not fear when heat comes, your leaves remain green. And you're not anxious in the year of drought, for you will never cease to bear fruit. Because he's the life source, right? So if you stay connected to him, you'll bear fruit. He's the vine we're the branches. I love that. I love that in John how he talks about. Jesus talks about he's the vine and we're the branches. Apart from me, you can do nothing. And this, this scripture just re. Says it and it kind of reiterates it in a whole different way. [00:22:00] But he is life. [00:22:03] And when we stay connected to him, we. We will produce life. We will produce fruit in every season. But if we disconnect from the vine, we won't. [00:22:14] We won't. [00:22:16] He is life. He doesn't just have life, he doesn't just give life. He is life. He's self sustaining life. [00:22:24] I'm going to read Psalms 9, Psalm 9 and 10. And those who know your name put their trust in you. For you, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you. [00:22:36] Lord, you have not forsaken those who seek you. And I just encourage you right now, even in this moment, if you're driving or if you're just sitting around listening, like putting your makeup on, I just ask you or just challenge you, or however you want to say this to just recall, has he ever really forsaken you? Anytime you've sought him, has he not really ever answered? Anytime you've asked, seek or knock, has he answered? Because Jesus said, ask, you'll be given. [00:23:13] Seek and you'll find. Knock and the door will be answered. [00:23:17] These are Jesus words. They're not mine, they're not someone else's in the Bible, these hold so much weight because they're coming straight from Jesus. [00:23:26] And God is so faithful to answer when we seek him, you, you. He never forsakes those who seek Him. And I just want to, I don't know, just challenge you to maybe if you've stopped seeking him, to come back and seek Him. [00:23:42] He won't. He won't forsake you as you seek him. And he'll reveal himself as being trustworthy. [00:23:53] So I love Malachi 3, 6. For I, the Lord do not change, is what he says. He doesn't change. So that proves his trustworthiness, right? Because if someone never changes, then that means if they were in the beginning, faithful, good, loving, merciful, kind, compassionate towards me, then that means he can never change. He says that I can never change. It's not that he doesn't want to change, he just can't change because he is goodness, right? He's goodness. [00:24:29] So it doesn't matter what we're facing, we can know that even in that we can trust him because he's still good. He has not changed. He Can't. [00:24:37] I think that we. Where we go wrong is we. [00:24:42] We. We kind of put God in the same category as people, right? Which is what I was saying a little bit earlier. But because people have hurt us, because people have let us down, because people have betrayed us, we just assume that he's like that. [00:25:01] But, you know, he said through one of the prophets in the Old Testament, I'm not a man, that I should lie, or the son of a man. [00:25:09] He said, I'm not a man that I should lie. [00:25:13] So he can't lie. [00:25:16] So if he said initially that these are. This is the way I feel towards you, I love you, I want what's best for you. I have a plan for you, I'm merciful towards you, I'm kind towards you, all my intentions towards you are good, then that means he couldn't change his mind. So that means you and I don't need to be suspicious because he's not like other men. He's not like anyone else. He's other than. [00:25:42] And that's one of the reasons we worship him, is because he's other than anything else anyone else we've ever known or seen or will ever see or know. [00:25:52] He's completely good. I hope. I'm really just, I don't know, starting a fire in you to really trust the Lord. [00:26:06] God is faithful. This is first 1 Corinthians 1:9. God is faithful who has called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord. And that makes me so excited because God has said, this is my intention towards you. I love you so much that I'm going to call you into fellowship with me and my son. Jesus says this a lot. Lots of times, especially when you look in John, the book of John. [00:26:31] He says things like, I am my Father, are one. And when you invite us in, we will come in and we'll abide with you. [00:26:41] He's like, I and the Father will come in and I'll abide with you. And then later on, he starts talking about the Holy Spirit. He's like, the Holy Spirit's gonna come when I. When I leave, and you want him to come. And he kind of just starts really building up how amazing the Holy Spirit is. So we have this Trinity, this fellowship that we're connected to, like they're. They're living in us. [00:27:05] I don't know if you can grasp that, because I don't know that I can grasp it, but I'm just. It makes me so excited that. To know that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are abiding with me. They. They live with me. [00:27:20] Wow. [00:27:21] And they're trustworthy. So I don't have to be suspicious. I don't ever have to wonder, hey, does he really have my best interests in mind? Is he really taking me somewhere good? See, his intention all along with the Israelites was to take them somewhere good. But they didn't trust him because they didn't know him. [00:27:41] They didn't know him. They were terrified of him. [00:27:45] And I just want to, as we're wrapping up today, and I want to say, hey, run, walk, run into his arms and celebrate his trustworthiness today, celebrate his faithfulness to you. [00:28:01] If you have to take a pen and a pencil and write down everything you can remember of all the times he's been faithful, do it. [00:28:09] Remind yourself. He was faithful when this happened. He was faithful when my life fell apart. He was faithful when I couldn't pay my bills. He was faithful when I went through a horrible divorce. He was faithful when, I don't know, I lost my business. He was faithful when I had a disease. He. I mean, on and on and on. You'll find that as you do that, your mindset will shift and you'll start to realize I really can trust him. I can trust him. [00:28:35] I don't. I don't have to be suspicious of him. He's not a man that he can lie. [00:28:42] That's some. That's some good stuff. And it. I'm even encouraging myself right here. [00:28:47] I hope that you're encouraged. As we leave today, I want to say a quick prayer over you, Lord. I just. I thank you for the, the work that you are doing in us, to teach us to trust you, to let go of suspicion, to let go of any. Any thoughts about you that are not true, that are not good, that are not holy, that are not right because you are completely trustworthy. I thank you for your trustworthiness, Lord. I thank you for your leadership. I thank you, Holy Spirit, for always teaching us about the Father and who he is. [00:29:20] And I just pray over everyone listening that the rest of this week would be full of reminders of your faithfulness and your trustworthiness, Lord. Yeah. In Jesus name, amen. [00:29:32] So listen, I love to keep in touch with the people who are my audience who's listening to it, to me. [00:29:41] So feel free to check out my website. It's janastrange.net and from there you can actually sign up for my newsletter, which I don't bombard you with, by the way, but I do tell you about things. [00:29:57] Any, any events I may be hosting, which I do have. I just had one at my house recently. [00:30:02] I also would just tell you if there's any kind of retreats I'm putting or putting on or I'm a part of or I'm speaking at or new programs I may have out for you. And any, any cool stuff coming up. So I'd love to connect with you. You can also, there's a place there you can email me as well. And I would love to get your feedback. I would love to hear if this touched you and what God's doing in your lives. So with that being said, I will see you next week. God bless.