What Does it Mean to Trust in God & Why Does He Care?
This is the very first episode when the show was called “The Sojourner Podcast”. One of the biggest benefits I have found to journaling is that it helps me connect the dots as seemingly unrelated things happen in my life, and, in this episode, that is what I’m reflecting on.
I talk about a lot of things including the Old Testament, Mother Teresa, trust, and obedience.
It is currently 6:30 in the morning. Both babies are asleep — which, as any mother knows, is nothing short of miraculous. There's a mug of coffee, a journal, our Bible study, and a Sunday Mass journal spread out on the table, and I find that I am reflecting on the many dots God is currently connecting in my life.
In this episode, I sit down with all of that and start tracing a thread that's been running through my prayer life for almost a year: the difference between trusting God with the big things and trusting Him with the small, insignificant ones. It turns out those are two very different kinds of trust — and God has been patiently, persistently teaching me that He cares about the small things just as much (if not more).
What's in this episode
Nothing offered to God is wasted — not our best moments, and not our worst ones.
An Ignatian contemplation from my journal, sitting with Jesus at an aquarium, where He tells me plainly: I see so much light in you — but you don't trust me.
The Tower of Babel, and Lisa Brenninkmeyer's insight (from Beholding His Glory) that Babel's people were only half obedient — and used that half-obedience as an excuse for the rest.
Fr. Mike Schmitz's homily on Lazarus, and how Jesus let Himself truly grieve a death He knew He was about to undo.
A slip of paper drawn at my mom's Christmas Bible study, naming "the thorns of His heart" as this year's gift — and how that's turned out to be more true than I expected.
Mother Teresa on suffering as a kiss of Jesus — proof of nearness, not absence.
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who trusted God even if He chose not to save them.
Joseph and Abraham, and what it looks like to love God for who He is, not just for what He gives us.
The tiny things are not too small for Him
It was incredibly difficult to hear God tell me: you don't trust Me. And it wasn’t because I don't trust Him with the sweeping, irreversible decisions — job changes, moving house, the things I have no control over anyway — but because I don't trust Him with the small stuff. The stuff that I can’t take care of myself. The things that are too insignificant for the God of the Universe to bother Himself with.
But, sitting with that, I realized something: I don't feel that way about my own children. Their big needs — a home, food, safety — are simply what makes me their mother. But it's the small needs, the ones they'll eventually be able to meet themselves, that I take the most joy in tending to. If that's true of me, an ordinary, limited mother, how much more true is it of Him?
That's the undercurrent of this whole episode: my reluctance to bring God the small stuff isn't humility or responsibility. It's a kind of Babel — a little tower I build to show off how much I can accomplish alone and retain a semblance of control. I have told myself that I’m trusting Him with what really matters, while keeping the rest to handle on my own.
And what struck me about Lazarus’ story is that Jesus doesn't skip over grieving just because He knows His plan. He weeps and He raises Lazarus. Trust doesn't mean ignoring sorrow — it means entering it, fully, with the knowledge that God already has a plan. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego take that even further: their trust isn't contingent on rescue. Even if He does not is the fullness of trust.
Do you feel silly bringing God the small things — a scheduling mishap, sensory overwhelm, an embarrassment you can’t stop replaying — this episode is for you.
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Alrighty then, let’s give this a try. Welome to Episode 1.
Hello and welcome. There are about, what feel like, a hundred things that are running around in my brain, and I think that there is a lot to be said, and I would like to share it all with you.
[0:38] So I am, well, it is 6:30 in the morning. Both the babies are still asleep, which is almost miraculous. And I thought this would be a good time to sit down for a little chunk of time and try and get a lot of this recorded.
[0:55] I have my journal out in front of me. I have my mug of coffee off to the side here. I've got my iPad, my bible study book, my Every Sacred Sunday mass journal, and my regular journal, and all of those things are going to have something to offer us this morning as I start looking at all of these dots that God has put in my life and starting to see how they all get connected.
[1:26] That is probably one of my favorite things about journaling, but about prayer, consistent daily prayer, you start to see… I like to think of it like a chess board and God can see the entire board, and He is a Master Chess Player. I don't really know how to play chess all that well. I just kind of move one piece at a time and hope that it works out well, but that's not how God plays. God is a Master Chess Payer and He can see how all of the pieces are going to move together for the greatest good, and it's amazing when we spend time in daily prayer, we can start to see His plan. When He makes a move, we can start to see that next move and this is my favorite way to go back and kind of boil down all of the things that he has revealed to me.
[2:30] And both of those images, taking all of the dots that He's placed in my presence and start connecting them or to see this cosmic chess board and how the pieces are moving… It's amazing to me that we can actually see His plan in the midst of it, not just in hindsight.
[2:51] A lot of times, we get to a certain point and we look back and then we're like, “oh I see what You were doing there!” But it's an amazing gift to be able to see that in the midst of it happening. Sometimes that happens. Most of the time it doesn't. But I would just like to share a bunch of these thoughts with you this morning.
[3:15] Okay, so the first thing that I want to say, that God is teaching me, is that absolutely, nothing that we give to God is ever wasted. We can offer Him our greatest accomplishment and we can also offer him the biggest failure that we have experienced or that was our fault, but, either way, He is going to use that for good.
[3:45] Nothing that we give Him is ever wasted, and I know that I have always wanted to just come to God when I am at my best, when I have the best to offer Him. I feel very insignificant and very embarrassed when I have to come to God in a time of lowness or when i've made a mistake or when I have something to confess. Those are very uncomfortable times for me to come into God's presence.
[4:11] But He can still use those things. And, in fact, sometimes He uses those bad things in even greater ways than when we bring Him our best, and I know that I do this not just with my relationship with God. I do this with all things.
[4:30] And that thought was starting to make me reflect more on the story of Babel, The Tower of Babel, the Old Testament story. I am currently doing a bible study through Walking with Purpose called “Beholding His Glory”, and it's all about seeing Jesus in the Old Testament.
[4:52] And if I flip back in my journal to June 12th, 2019, I was reflecting on a couple verses from Matthew at that time, and I have a journal entry here where I was using the Ignatian Spiritual Contemplation Exercises to, kind of, dig deeper into these verses from Matthew, and what I wrote was…
[5:20] I was sitting with Jesus on a flat slatted bench at an aquarium. I don't know why, that's just where we were, and I reflected in my imagination on these verses from Matthew.
[5:35] I asked Jesus to look into my eyes and tell me if He saw light or if He saw darkness. And He said, “Emily I see so much light”, and I felt a little uncomfortable with that answer, because that's not what I felt, and so I asked Him what was casting shadows in that light that He saw? And He told me that I don't trust Him. And honestly, I was very surprised and a little hurt by that answer, because I have always thought that I trusted very easily.
[6:16] My middle name is Faithe. I have just always moved through life with this thought about myself that I very easily trust, and, all of a sudden, I'm sitting here with Jesus in my imagination and He is telling me that I do not trust Him. And I definitely felt hurt by that.
[6:36] And so I sat with it, and I started realizing that, specifically, I do not trust God with my own comfort.
[6:50] I think I 've always thought that I trust God because I trust him with the big things so easily. When we have changed jobs, when we've sold our house, when we've moved to new homes, those really big things that I really don't have very much control over anyways, I have no problem trusting God with those, and I feel no fear. I feel no anxiety. I just trust Him with those things and that comes very easily to me.
[7:20] It's the tiny, insignificant things that I have trouble trusting God with, and it's not even so much that I don't trust Him. It's that I do not understand why He would even bother. Like, why would God care about these stupid, insignificant things in my life?
[7:49] And, as i'm saying that out loud, I'm picturing someone else saying those words to me, and what I would immediately want to say to that person is that nothing about your life is insignificant to God.
[8:08] I think about my own children, and how there's nothing about them that is insignificant to me. And, actually, I take more joy in satisfying their insignificant needs than their big needs. I'm their mother. My job is to supply their big needs. If I wasn't supplying their big needs, like, you know, a house for them to live in, making sure they have food to eat every day - if I wasn't doing those things, I wouldn't even be called their mother. I would be called something completely different.
[8:46] It's when they have tiny needs, that, really, they could probably, and they will eventually, be able to supply themselves, when I get to meet those needs for them, I derive even greater joy doing that - gosh - I've never thought about it that way before. It's amazing how having our own children makes us see God in such different lights.
[9:13] So anyways, coming back around to the story of Babel. In the bible study that we are currently doing, the lesson on Babel starts with this false sense of security that the people of Babel had.
[9:32] So, back in Genesis, God's people were commanded, after the flood, when they came out of the ark, Noah and his family, they were told to - let's see if I can find it here - “be fertile multiply. Fill the earth.”
[9:51] This is what God told Adam and Eve, and then He reiterates it after the flood.
[9:58] So… who really are these people? They're not really the Israelites yet. Anyways, Noah's family, God's people at that time, they branched out. They fill the earth.
[10:10] Okay, so um, Lisa Breninkmeyer, who is the author of this bible study, she points out that it seems God's direction for them was to go out and move about the earth, but they decided to settle down in this town and to build a community for themselves. And they build a city. They build a tower. They are looking to make a name for themselves, and they're avoiding being scattered all over the earth.
[10:47] And, if you want to go back and read the actual words, this is in Genesis 11. It's verse 4.
[10:55] And Lisa points out that this desire to have the comfort, the confidence, the security of a community in a town outweighed God's people's desire to fully follow God's direction.
[11:18] God didn't ask them to settle down. He told them to go and fill the earth. They only half followed God's law. They were only half obedient, and their half obedience that they started with, they used as an excuse to be disobedient on the back end.
[11:35] And I know for sure that I do that all the time. And I think of it most frequently, and I'm sure many people have this experience: when trying to eat healthy, if I start out my morning, I've eaten a great breakfast, I've had a veggie omelet, I've had my sugarless coffee, and then I get to lunchtime in the mid-afternoon, I'm like, “okay, I did as much as I could do for now, and I deserve to have a whole sleeve of oreos” or whatever the thing is. That's not being obedient. That's being only half obedient.
[12:13] And so after studying that story, I just asked myself, like, why do I still feel the need to build a tower? To protect myself? To create my own community? To make a name for myself? When all God has ever asked of me is to trust that He already has these things taken care of. You know, like, He is protecting me. He is giving me a community. He is the reason that my name means anything in the first place. He has already gotten those things taken care of, and I have no business trying to do those things for myself, and, really, why would I want to? He can do those things so much better than I ever could. Oh my goodness, is that not true?
[13:06] So, God has been very actively, and really in no uncertain terms, He's been teaching me to trust Him for the past year. I mean like we're going back to June here people. It's March 2020 It's april 2020. Ay caramba.
[13:24] So, okay, the reason that I'm kind of coming together with all of this is because, this past weekend, a lot of the lessons that God has been teaching me have been coming together. So, because of this COVID 19 outbreak, we have been watching Mass at home on Sundays, and we have been watching the Ascension Presents YouTube channel with Father Mike Schmitz. He's been saying Mass, and he is just an incredible homilist. I mean, seriously, and he talked about trusting in the midst of brokenness.
[14:02] The the gospel was Lazarus being raised from the dead, and Lazarus's death hurt Jesus. Jesus allowed himself to truly and really mourn the death of Lazarus. I think really he was mourning death, just in general, the evil of death, and He recognized the evil that is in the world and how devastating that is and how that was never a part of God's plan for us, and, Jesus, knowing full well that He was about to raise Lazarus from the dead, allowed Himself to feel this moment with Mary and Martha to really feel it. He wept with them. He mourned Lazarus's death with Mary and Martha. And, I think, a lot of times I feel very embarrassed and probably a couple other emotions that I can't quite put my finger on yet, when I am sad about things. I feel uncomfortable being sad. I feel, yeah, embarrassed, uncomfortable to be sad in front of other people.
[15:I7] I have really no problem being sad on my own, it's just when other people can see that emotion in me I have a difficult time with that. And really deep sadness, especially when innocent people are being hurt by others with more power than them, that gets me in a way that I really can't handle, and I think, in large part, that is why I have always avoided lent.
[15:45] I do not like lent. I don't like it at all. I avoid it quite expertly. I have never entered into that season well. I've really always tried to run away from it as much as possible, and this was the year that I decided, and have been praying fervently, to be able to enter into the season of lent and to really experience lent. And my… what a lent it has been. I mean, seriously.
[16:18] Alright, so Fr. Mike said that we should draw into the broken heart of Jesus, and I keep picturing Jesus in this moment with Lazar-ith. Lazar-us… gosh, it feels like whenever I say his name I have, like, a lisp or something. Drawing into the broken heart of Jesus. That's difficult for me. I don't like the idea of that at all. But I am praying about it. I am trying to really enter into that.
[16:56] And then, the crazy thing is, every year, my mom has a group of friends she has a bible study with, and they do this activity at Christmas time where we all draw slips of paper out of an envelope that has something that Jesus is asking of you for the next year and then a gift that Jesus is giving you for that coming year. And, for the last two years, I have happened to be around when they're doing this, and they've let me draw papers, and this year the gift that Jesus gave me is the thorns of His heart so that I can make them less painful with my prayers.
[17:40] And, I guess I didn't think so much of that when I drew it, but now it's becoming really obvious that that is a really big thing. And it's a gift that Jesus is trying to give me for this year. And i'm having a hard time seeing how that's going to be a gift, but, I mean, time and time again now, this year, the thorns, the crown of thorns, has come up, and this idea that Jesus is drawing me into His Sacred Heart, His broken heart, I really got to sit with that quite a bit more, but I am certainly trying to do that.
[18:20] Uh, okay. So in an effort to enter into lent a little bit better I started reading this book called “Walking with Mary: A Biblical Journey from Nazareth to the Cross” by Edward Sri, and the part that I read yesterday is him talking about the sword that will pierce Mary's heart that the prophet Simeon told her would happen. And he quotes something from Mother Teresa, and Mother Teresa said, “Suffering is but a kiss of Jesus, a sign that you have come so close to Him on the cross that He can kiss you. I hope we are close enough that He can do that. Naturally, the nails will hurt me. If I come close to the crown of thorns, it will hurt me.”
[19:14] And, man, it's this idea that there is beauty in suffering. The only reason that we can have beauty in suffering is because of Jesus, because of the cross. He turned the greatest evil into the greatest good for mankind, and that came up today in my bible study lesson.
[19:42] We're studying Joseph of the Old Testament and Lisa is pointing out how Joseph's brothers sold him into slavery after they downgraded from trying to murder him, and that decision of his brothers, that very evil moral decision, turned into a situation where Joseph was in prime position to save them from the famine that struck their land. God can turn incredible evil for good. He can turn everything to good. It's unbelievable.
[20:17] So, furthering on in Fr. Mike's homily from last weekend, he continued to illustrate how trust should work in the midst of sorrow. When Jesus finally shows up after Lazarus has died, Martha comes running out to him and basically blames Him for Lazarus's death, because, if Jesus had been there, He could have done something to save him.
[20:42] And then, after that, Mary comes out and basically says exactly the same thing. And it is clear that Jesus's actions were very purposeful, because He says to His disciples before they go to them that He's glad for His disciples that He wasn't there when Lazarus died, so that they might come to believe. That’s John 11, verse 15. And gosh, don't we do this?
[21:08] If God is all powerful and supremely good, it's so difficult for us to understand why He would let these awful things happen, and especially, like in this situation, Jesus was in the flesh. He was one of Mary and Martha's closest friends, and He is off healing everybody else. Why could He not bless and heal His closest friends? Isn't that so difficult for us to understand?
[21:39] But I have written in huge letters here in my bible and in my journal THE REASON IS BECAUSE GOD HAS A PLAN. He always has a plan. Jesus knew, in this moment when He is with Mary and Martha, they are all weeping, they are mourning the death of Lazarus, He knows that in mere seconds He is going to raise Lazarus from the dead. Mary and Martha don't know that, but Jesus knows it. He knows He's going to do this.
[22:08] Fr. Mike then offers another story. Mary and Martha's reaction can be held in very sharp contrast to the unbelievable trust of Shadrach Meshach and Abednego. Which, interestingly, those names are their slave names. They have Hebrew names that Fr. Mike referred to them as that I don't recall at this moment, but I never knew that they had multiple names. This is in the book of Daniel. In Daniel as well, Daniel is his Hebrew name. He was also given a slave name, which is very interesting. Another topic for another time
[22:45] Anyways, so Shadrach Meshach and Abednego are captured after they refuse to bow down to Nebuchadnezzar's statue, and they tell the king, Nebuchadnezzar, that their God has the power to save them from the white hot furnace, but, even if God chooses not to save them, there's no way that they're worshiping Nebuchadnezzar's statue, because their God is the one and only God.
[23:11] Even if He decides not to save them, that's incredible. So then, Fr. Mike talks about all this in his homily on Sunday, and then I start studying about Joseph of the Old Testament in this week's bible study. And, as I mentioned briefly before, he endured incredible unfairness and suffering. But Lisa points out in this study that Joseph never complained about that. He never lost heart in God's plan for him. And I think in, like, the movie versions, you can definitely see frustration in Joseph, but it's never alluded to in the bible.
[23:52] So we're learning about Joseph, right? And this is right after we learned about Abraham and how much Abraham really needed to trust God as God was making him promises and there was no obvious way that he could keep them. Like, God says, “Abraham, I am going to bless you with descendants as numerous as the stars.” And I'm sure Abraham is looking around like, “Okay I don't have any children. How are you gonna do that?” Abraham had no reason to believe God in that moment. No reason there was no way that God could, in our terms and understanding, fulfill that promise that he was making.
[24:43] Okay, but as we watch these stories unfold, Jesus raises Lazarus from the dead. That's something that we say a lot, but, like, He raised him from the dead. He was dead. And Jesus, just, like, opened up the grave and was like, “Hey Lazarus. How's it going? Come on out. We'll all have a nice little family reunion. None of this ever happened.” It's ridiculous.
[25:12] And then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were indeed saved from the flames of the white hot furnace, and, because of that, God's glory was displayed for all of Babylon to see.
[25:26] And then Joseph, of course, he's led through a series of very unfortunate circumstances so that he can be in a position at exactly the right time that enabled him to save the entirety of Egypt and the surrounding cities in the time of famine. And then, of course, that means he also saves his father and his brothers because they come to Egypt looking for food during the famine. And then, in that moment, the dreams that Joseph had had before he was sold into slavery, all of that comes to fruition.
[26:00] The promise is made to Abraham. He will have a great nation, a great name, a great blessing, even though, for Abraham, It took hundreds of years for all of the promises God made him to be fulfilled.
[26:16] Hundreds of years. In this modern age, we want everything this minute. I feel like I say one prayer to God and I expect it to be fulfilled that second. And Abraham, I mean Abraham was dead when some of the promises God made him were fulfilled. Having that eternal mindset is difficult, but incredibly important.
[26:42] Abraham loved God, not just what God had given him. It wasn't this conditional relationship. Abraham loved God. It wasn't because of what God gave him. He just loved God, and because of that, it enabled Abraham to obey God's command to sacrifice Isaac, even though Isaac was the obvious way God would fulfill his promise. God makes this promise to Abraham and Abraham's like, “God, I don't have a son. How are you gonna do this?” And God's like, “Don't worry about it. You'll have a son.” And Abraham's like, “No, like, I don't know if you noticed, I'm super old. I can't have a son.” And then, you know, that happens, Sarah becomes pregnant, they have Isaac. Okay, this incredible miracle has happened, and finally Abraham's like, “Yes, I see it. I see how the plan is coming together.”
[27:33] And then God's like, “Abraham, I want you to sacrifice Isaac back to me. And, almost without any hesitation, Abraham's like, “Okay, I'll do it.” That's incredible.
[27:44] Part of me feels like some of that story is a lie. Because I just don't, like how… I don't know.
[27:52] So, okay when we finally know with no doubt whatsoever that we are unconditionally loved by God, we can ask him for absolutely anything. This unconditional relationship that God is able to have with us - unconditional meaning there’s nothing that we have to give God for him to love us and nothing that we do can break that relationship with him. God is always with us. There is no condition to that. He created us. We are His and that's it. There's no condition. And, because of that, we can ask Him for anything. Absolutely anything.
[28:40] And the second part of that is that whatever God's answer is when we ask, If we truly love Him, and not just what He can do for us, we can accept whatever the answer is and know that God is going to use it for His greater glory, even if we perceive it to be a bad thing. Even if we don't see how that could possibly happen. Even if we don't get it, if we love God for Him and not for what he can do for us, our trust becomes so much bigger. Because He is all powerful, because He is all knowing.
[29:29] I'm just going to repeat that one more time: when we finally know, with no doubt whatsoever, that we are unconditionally loved by God, we can ask Him for absolutely anything. And whatever His answer is, we can accept it, and know that it will be for the greater glory of God.