DAY 8: MONDAY

WHEN YOU CANNOT SEE WHAT GOD IS DOING

“Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.” Proverbs 3:5 (KJV)

MY PRAYER FOR YOU

Dear Heavenly Father,

Thank You for bringing this woman into another week.

Last week, You began teaching her to slow down. You invited her to become still enough to notice what she has been carrying, recognize old patterns, remain in the present, and begin learning how to receive rest.

Now, as she steps forward again, I pray that You teach her what it means to trust You when she cannot see what You are doing.

You know the places in her life that still do not make sense. You know the prayers she has prayed that seem unanswered, the relationships she wishes were different, the circumstances she cannot change, and the people she loves whose choices she cannot control.

You know the questions she may be afraid to say aloud.

Why did You allow this?

Why has this not changed?

Why did that door close?

Why did that relationship end?

Why is my child hurting?

Why have I prayed for so long and still cannot see an answer?

Father, do not teach her to pretend those questions do not exist. Teach her to bring them to You.

When she cannot understand Your hand, teach her to trust Your heart.

Give her wisdom to recognize what You are asking of her today without demanding that she understand the entire road ahead. Teach her to obey the next thing You have made clear and trust You with everything she cannot see.

And when her children encounter their own valleys, help her resist the urge to give them shallow answers simply because their questions make her uncomfortable. Teach her how to sit beside them in uncertainty and point them toward You.

Let them discover that faith does not mean they will always understand God.

Faith means they can trust Him even when they do not.

Build that kind of faith in this woman first, Father, so that she can help cultivate it in the children You have entrusted to her.

In Jesus’ name,

Amen.

DEVOTIONAL

Yesterday, you were invited to stand still long enough to look back.

Today, we begin walking again.

But there is something important to remember before we take another step.

You will not always be able to see where the path is going.

That is one of the hardest parts of trusting God.

We often say we trust Him when we can see evidence that everything is moving in the direction we hoped. The relationship is improving. The child is doing better. The financial situation is changing. The prayer seems to be getting answered. The door is beginning to open.

It is much harder when nothing appears to be happening.

Or worse, when circumstances seem to be moving in the opposite direction.

Scripture says:

“Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.” Proverbs 3:5 (KJV)

That verse does not tell us that understanding is wrong.

It tells us not to lean on it.

There is a difference.

Understanding is a gift. We should seek wisdom. We should ask questions. We should learn from our experiences, examine our choices, seek counsel, and pay attention to what God is teaching us.

But eventually, every one of us reaches places where our understanding ends.

We do not know why.

We do not know when.

We do not know how.

We do not know what another person will choose.

We do not know whether the door will open.

We do not know how the story will end.

And we have to decide what will hold us when understanding cannot.

This is where trust begins to deepen.

Trust is easy to confuse with certainty.

Sometimes what we really want from God is not trust at all. We want Him to tell us exactly what is going to happen so we can finally relax.

Tell me my child will be okay.

Tell me this relationship will heal.

Tell me the money will come.

Tell me the opportunity will work out.

Tell me this pain will have a purpose I can understand.

Tell me that if I obey You, everything will turn out the way I hope.

Then I will trust You.

But if God gives us the entire ending before asking us to walk, we are not really learning to trust Him.

We are trusting the information.

Faith often asks us to walk with less information than we would like.

That does not mean walking blindly into foolishness. God gives us Scripture. He gives wisdom. He gives discernment. He gives wise counsel. He gives us minds capable of thinking and evaluating.

But He does not always give us the ending.

Sometimes He gives us enough light for the next step.

And we have to take it.

This becomes especially difficult when the uncertainty involves our children.

There are few things that can make a mother want certainty more desperately than watching her child struggle.

You want to know how it ends.

You want to know they will be okay.

You want to know the hurt will not leave a permanent wound. You want to know the difficult season will strengthen them instead of breaking them. You want to know the choices they make will eventually lead them toward God.

You want to see the other side while you are still standing in the middle.

Sometimes God does not show you.

That can feel unbearable.

So we try to create certainty ourselves.

We plan. We advise. We intervene. We research. We replay conversations. We think through every possible outcome.

Some of those things may be wise and necessary.

But none of them can give us complete control over another human life.

Your child will eventually make choices you cannot make for them.

That is why the greatest thing you can give your children is not a life where they never struggle.

It is a foundation strong enough to hold them when they do.

We want to raise children who know how to stand.

That means teaching them to speak when something is wrong. It means teaching them that being loving does not require allowing another person to mistreat them. It means teaching them to recognize healthy boundaries, seek help, tell the truth, and walk away from situations that are unsafe.

But we also want to teach them something deeper.

How to keep their hearts from becoming hard while they stand.

The world often teaches us that strength means becoming tougher than the person who hurt us.

Jesus teaches something different.

Strength can tell the truth without hatred.

Strength can establish a boundary without revenge.

Strength can walk away without needing to destroy the other person.

Strength can forgive without pretending something was acceptable.

Strength can pray for someone while recognizing that reconciliation may not currently be wise or possible.

Strength can say, “What you did was wrong,” while still refusing to allow bitterness to become the thing that shapes the rest of your life.

That kind of strength comes from somewhere deeper than personality.

It comes from knowing where your security is.

And your children will learn much of this by watching you.

They are watching what you do when someone misunderstands you. They are listening to how you talk about people who have hurt you. They notice whether fear determines your decisions. They notice whether you become consumed with proving yourself right.

They also notice when you say:

I do not know what God is doing here, but I know what He has asked me to do.

That is powerful.

Because one day they will stand somewhere you cannot stand for them.

They will face a decision you cannot make.

They will experience rejection you cannot prevent.

They will encounter someone you cannot protect them from beforehand.

They will have a prayer that does not seem to be answered.

And in that moment, they will need more than Mom's faith.

They will need their own.

This is why we are not simply trying to pass down information about God.

We are creating opportunities for our children to encounter Him.

When your child is struggling, you do not always have to give the answer immediately.

Sometimes you can say:

“I don't know exactly what God is doing here either.”

Then you can open Scripture together.

You can pray together.

You can ask:

“What do we know is true even though we don't know what happens next?”

That question can become an anchor.

What do we know?

God is still God.

God has not changed.

His Word has not changed.

We can tell the truth.

We can do what is right.

We can ask for wisdom.

We can seek help.

We can obey what He has made clear.

And we can trust Him with what He has not revealed.

This is how faith begins becoming personal.

Your child discovers that God is not merely the God Mom talks about when everything is going well.

He is the God who meets them when they do not know.

And perhaps you need to encounter Him there too.

Maybe there is something in your life right now that you cannot understand.

You have examined it from every direction.

You have prayed.

You have asked questions.

You have tried to figure out what God is doing.

And you still do not know.

Perhaps today God is not asking you to understand it.

Perhaps He is asking you to stop leaning your entire weight against your ability to make sense of it.

There is a difference between saying:

I understand what God is doing, so I have peace.

And saying:

I do not understand what God is doing, but I know God, so I can remain steady here.

That is the kind of faith that can survive troubled waters.

Not faith built on favorable circumstances.

Not faith built on immediate answers.

Not faith built on getting the outcome we wanted.

Faith built on God Himself.

This does not mean you will never become afraid.

It means fear does not get to decide what you believe.

It does not mean you will never ask why.

It means the unanswered why does not get to become greater than the God you know.

It does not mean you stop praying for the outcome you desire.

Pray boldly.

Ask God.

Tell Him exactly what you want.

But then leave room for three words that require enormous trust:

Your will, Lord.

Not because your desire does not matter.

Because God sees what you cannot.

That is surrender.

It is not giving up.

It is giving over.

You still show up. You still protect what God has entrusted to you. You still tell the truth. You still establish boundaries. You still seek wisdom. You still pray. You still take the next faithful step.

But you stop requiring yourself to know the entire path before you take it.

Maybe you cannot see where this road leads.

You do not need to today.

Look down (or rather “UP”).

What is the next faithful step?

Take that one.

Then trust God for the light you will need when it is time to take another.

Not knowing can awaken the part of you that wants to gather more information, read every signal, and create a plan before you can rest. Discernment is not the same as exhaustive certainty. A formed woman can say, I do not know yet, and remain anchored. She can wait for fruit, watch patterns, seek counsel, and refuse to let urgency make the decision for her.

TAKE A MOMENT

Think about one situation in your life that you have been trying especially hard to understand.

What question keeps repeating in your mind?

Do not try to answer it right now.

Instead, ask yourself:

What do I already know to be true, even though I do not know how this situation will end?

Start there.

JOURNAL WITH GOD

What situation am I struggling most to understand right now?

What answer or certainty do I wish God would give me?

Have I been believing that I cannot have peace until I understand what God is doing?

What do I know about God's character even though I do not understand this circumstance?

What has God already made clear about how I should respond?

What is the next faithful step that actually belongs to me?

What am I trying to understand or control that I may need to leave in God's hands?

How can I help my children learn to seek God when I do not have an answer for what they are facing?

YOUR TIME WITH GOD

Today, bring God your unanswered question.

You do not need to clean it up first. You do not need to pretend you are comfortable with uncertainty.

Tell Him what you wish you understood.

Tell Him what you are afraid of.

Tell Him the outcome you hope for.

Then ask Him:

What do You want me to do with what I know today?

Do not ask yourself to solve the entire situation.

Look for the next faithful step.

Maybe you need to speak.

Maybe you need to wait.

Maybe you need to ask for help.

Maybe you need to apologize.

Maybe you need to establish a boundary.

Maybe you need to do something practical.

Maybe you have already done what belongs to you, and today's faithful step is simply refusing to pick the outcome back up.

Whatever it is, bring it before God.

Then ask Him to teach you how to trust Him where your understanding ends.

You do not have to know how the story ends to walk faithfully through today's page of it.

Tomorrow's page has not been written for you to read yet.

Today, you have enough.

You have God's Word.

You have His presence.

You have the next step.

Take it.

And trust Him with the road you cannot yet see.