Welcome to Week 2, Day 3 of the Thriver Series

Just as a quick reminder before we begin, the Thriver Series is a three week or 21 day workshop that will consist of three interactive workshop articles each week, for a total of nine workshops for the series.

See the link below for Thriver Series Overview.

Trust To Thrive

Today, I want to take the time to talk about trust. Not just any trust but the kind of trust that reinforces and supports the Thriver mentality. This sets us up for our last and final week which will be on Agency — Spiritual, Emotional and Relational Agency.

If you’re human, you know, we all know, that it’s easier to trust on the mountaintop than it is in the valley of life. Why? Because trust isn’t required until trust is necessary. Think about it, do you have to trust that the chair will not break when you have a new chair or a chair that you’ve sat in for years without fail? What about when the gas tank is full and you’ve got 10 miles to go, would it be easy to trust that you’ll make it? What if you’ve never run out of gas or you don’t know just how far that last drop of gas will take you, and you’ve got 10 miles to go and your gas light has been on for the last 20 miles. Will you trust or panic?

See, trust has more to do with the unfamiliar than with the familiar. New experiences in life or faith, will always require us to trust on a new level or in a different way than we have before. That’s why trust has to be cultivated in the good times so that we are prepared to trust in the bad times, in the waiting seasons, in the valley or in our darkest hours.

You’ve heard the scripture: “For His anger is but for a moment, His favor is for life; Weeping may endure for a night, But joy comes in the morning” (Psalm 30:5). That was my mother’s favorite scripture, and over the years it has become one of mine as well. When we read this scripture, what jumps out is the transition from weeping to joy. The bible doesn’t tell us why or how joy comes, it just tells us when — “But joy comes in the morning.” I’m the type that always wants to know the why — I’m a serious why person. If I don’t know the why behind something, the what doesn’t really do me any good. Joy comes in the morning, but why or how?

Here’s what I came up with after some time and some study. The symbolic meaning of night in the bible is darkness. When it’s dark, we have a difficulty seeing, understanding or interpreting things like we can when the sun is out or when it’s bright out. Unless we’re trained to see in the dark, darkness can cause doubt, anxiety, fear and a lack of trust. The bible puts it this way: “But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil” (Hebrews 5:14). Is the why beginning to take shape?

The thriver has to train trust while it’s light out in order to rely on trust when darkness comes. And, darkness will come. When the bible says, “But joy comes in the morning,” morning represents clarity, sight, and understanding through trust. This is what is meant by: “For we walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7). And, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1). So what is the key to getting to the morning? Faith. Faith in the word activates our trust in the darkness. In other words, nighttime is that period of time before we trust — through faith, because we cannot see what God is doing. Morning comes when our faith activates our trust — “faith is the evidence of things not seen.” The English Standard Translation says it this way: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”

Have you experienced nighttime while waiting on a prayer to be answered? Have you experienced nighttime when all hell is breaking loose or when you needed a move of God for a specific need in a specific timeframe? What about accepting God’s call on your life or taking a risk for your vision or stepping out on faith to do what comes next? When nighttime comes, we are either prepared or unprepared, confident or doubtful, assured and convicted or fearful and distressed.

What most don’t know is that during our nighttime, God is preparing us for our next level of trust through faith. Do you remember the story about Joseph? Joseph had a dream when he was about 18 years old. In his dream, he saw himself over his family — his father Jacob, his mother, and his brothers and sister. What makes Joseph’s dream so unbelievable is that customarily the youngest was not the next in line to succeed the father in death, the oldest male was. The next in line was always the oldest. As well, not only did you have to be the oldest to be next in line, a son couldn’t succeed or be over his father unless and until the father died. In Joseph’s dream, God showed him that he would be over his family while his father lived but the dream didn’t tell him when or how. Has God every showed you an impossible vision or dream or door but left out the details?

Soon after Joseph started having this dream, his brothers became jealous and offended by his bold claim that he would be the over his entire family. They plotted against Joseph, and came up with a plan to get rid of him. They threw him into a pit and left him for dead. But God! Joseph wound up being sold into slavery and landed in Egypt at Potiphar’s house, the captain of Pharaoh’s guard. Soon after Joseph was sold into slavery, God showed favor on Joseph during his nighttime and Potiphar promoted Joseph to the head of his household. But that was short-lived…Potiphar’s wife had other plans for the young, handsome Joseph, and when Joseph rejected her advances she accused him of trying to rape her. The next thing you know, Joseph is sent to prison for a crime he didn’t commit. Think about it, Joseph went from the pit to Potiphar’s house to prison. Nighttime on top of nighttime!

While in prison, Joseph runs into two prison mates — Pharaoh’s chief butler and baker. One night, the butler and the baker had dreams, and who do you think God used to interpret their dreams? Right, Joseph. But think about it, Joseph couldn’t interpret his own dream but God used him to interpret the dreams of the butler and the baker — with 100% accuracy. Here’s the thing, when God is preparing your faith to trust in the darkness, He will have you do for others what you can’t do for yourself. Why? Because doing for others what you can’t do for yourself in your nighttime causes you to understand how God operates in your nighttime. He will do for you what you cannot do for yourself: “…With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible” (Matthew 19:26).

God uses our nighttime to increase our faith, endurance and trust. Listen to what the bible said: “Until the time came to fulfill his dreams, the LORD tested Joseph’s character” (Psalm 105:19). What we believe, what we have faith for, and our trust in God shows up in the nighttime through our character — how we respond to the darkness. In our nighttime, God will work out our faith to get us to a level of trust that will bring us to the morning of our joy.

A thriver has to be prepared for life’s nighttime’s — the enemy will do everything he can to discourage, frustrate and blind you during your nighttime. He will  throw your emotions into a pit and prison during your nighttime. If you aren’t preparing, sharpening, reinforcing your faith during the good times, your nighttime’s can sometimes last, or feel like they last, a long time. It took Joseph 13 years to get from the pit to the palace. He spent two years in prison before he made it to the palace where God showed him favor again and Pharaoh put him in charge of the whole land of Egypt…which is how he became head of his father’s household (Genesis 37, 39, 40, 41).

Have you had a Joseph nighttime? Has the wait turned into a weight? Are your nighttime experiences lasting months, even years? Have you recognized the ways that God is building your character, faith and trust in the nighttime? Listen to what the bible tells us: “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings [nighttime], because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us” (Romans 5:1-5).

The thriver is going to have nighttime experiences. As a thriver, you’re not reacting to the nighttime, you’re preparing for the nighttime by sharpening, training faith to see in the dark, to trust in the dark, to fear no evil in the dark, to stand on the word and the expectation of joy coming in the morning. Remember what the bible said…”But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil” (Hebrews 5:14). The thriver trains their senses for the nighttime.

Can you imagine what your nighttime experiences would be like if they were filled with hope, faith and trust? If through trained faith, your confidence was so high that even in the midst of the valley, the storm, the trial, the wait, you were at peace? Can you imagine facing any mountain, any fight, any challenge with boldness and confidence?  You can. You will. Does that mean you won’t experience the testing of your faith like Joseph? No. Your thriver mindset will condition your faith and trust for the storms, mountains, challenges and waiting seasons by constantly training — in the daytime.

You are a thriver and when you train like a thriver, your faith walk won’t be a cake walk but it will be a power walk. You are predestined for greatness, to break generational curses, to be free from bondage, to overcome and prosper. Training your faith to trust in the nighttime will accelerate the coming of joy. Put this in your spirit, the bible didn’t say that joy meant the storm was over. Joy is an attitude about the storm, the mountain, the trial: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Romans 15:13). Have you noticed that the only real difference between one storm and another is trust? All things will work together for your good but how we go through the storm depends on our trust or our willingness to trust God on a new level. Can you imagine yourself facing the storm with joy overflowing because of your trust in God to bless the work of your hands?

I hope, pray, that today’s workshop has given you some ideas to help you thrive.

For today’s Thriver Challenge, I want us to apply Joseph’s story and our reference scriptures to our thriver mindset. See below for your Thriver Challenge.

Blessings,

Patrick

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