We were sitting outside by the hotel pool on an unusually chilly Florida day. I had wrapped myself in a beach towel for warmth and was watching kids running around the pool and going up and down the water slide. Surely these children were from Minnesota. It was way too chilly to actually be WET out here.

As my husband and I chatted (my teeth were slightly chattering,) a plane flew overhead and began to write something in the sky. Our hotel was located between Walt Disney World and Universal Studios, so I figured the message would be something akin to “Surrender, Dorothy.” Imagine my surprise when the words “TRUST JESUS” appeared. Why yes, don’t mind if I do!

I had been worrying over a retreat that I am leading in a few days. We couldn’t find a curriculum we liked, so the organizer asked me if I could write something. Let me pause here and say if any of you are aware that I have been asked to do such a thing in the future, please slap me upside the head until I say no.

But since none of you were there to slap me, I said yes, and have been diligently writing, planning, and dreaming away ever since. This job is so much bigger than I am. How should the timing of each session go? Do I have enough interaction planned? How much music? Is there a good balance of quiet reflection and table-talking? Should we do a craft? What craft?

It will probably amuse you to know that the subject they wanted me to focus on is WORRY. At least my firsthand knowledge of the subject will give me that authentic voice we all long to hear when we go to a retreat. I have worried, fretted, lost sleep, changed direction, talked incessantly to my running partners about it….oy vey.

This morning I discovered that my sermon for the final worship session (which I finished on the plane on the way to Florida) has somehow managed to go missing in cyber space, and the last two-thirds did not get saved.

Trust Jesus, indeed.

Proverbs 3 (New International Version)

5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart
    and lean not on your own understanding;
⁶ in all your ways submit to him,
    and he will make your paths straight.

So what do you have going on right now? Where is God calling you to stop leaning on YOUR understanding, and submit to him? What are you holding back because you don’t actually trust him?

This scripture is calling you to trust in the Lord with ALL your heart. Not just for the little things, parsing out simple tasks to him, but with EVERYTHING. Your home, your life, your marriage, your health, your kids…your unfinished retreat sermon.

When I need reminded of this the most is when I think I am in control, or that I can solve my own problems. I hurry ahead, plow through, push on, and forget that God, in HIS understanding, has already worked it out without me.

And so the lost sermon was re-written. I don’t know if I wrote the same thing, or took it in a totally new direction, but I do know this: it was God’s work all along.

So too will he come into your situation and work it out for your good. Just trust, and obey.