I’ll admit, my greatest fear is that God will one day up and leave me. I confessed this once again yesterday evening, sitting in the dining room, talking with Erik. I have this irrational and unshakable fear that my Heavenly Father, the God that is love, will finally get fed up with my screw-ups and failings and consider me a worthless cause. I’m terrified that maybe He’s not 100% love and that time spent waiting on His answers to prayers would better be spent working to provide for myself, rather than allow Him to work and eventually decide I’m not worth the provision. In my waiting, I try to prove to Him that I’m worth it, that He shouldn’t leave me high and dry. And I know I’m not alone.

Waiting to be abandoned

If you’re anything like me, experience has taught me that at some point I will be left by those close to me. Girlfriends, friends, acquaintances, broken marriages have all served at one point or another to convince me that I’m doomed to be left alone, abandoned. And so I have an intrinsic distrust, especially on first meeting, that this is just another opportunity to be reminded that I’m just waiting for this process to take place all over again.

Waiting to be appreciated

I try, in response, to desperately establish a basis of empathy with new acquaintances. I want to show them quickly and often that I am worthy of being kept around. And I carry this compulsion into my relationship with God. I’m constantly trying to be pious so that He won’t pull the plug on me when I really need Him. And when those times of waiting do come around, with it is the inevitable stress. What else can I do to prove to the Father that I’m worth providing for this time? And I spin my wheels in religious haste.

Waiting on my heart

And God patiently waits for me to exhaust myself in my outwardly “Christian” tizzy. He’s patient, loving. There is nothing more than a whispered, “Calm down, my son,” in response. Once I’m done, He calmly shows me how silly I’ve been. He gently reassures me He is there and He hears my fears. He convinces me in my heart that He will never leave me, at least not today. And He provides.

We’ve all had broken relationships, people leaving us, and oftentimes it can convince us that God will leave us as well. Especially in the times we have to wait for God to provide, it’s unnerving because we can’t find enough to continue proving our worth to God to fill the time. I know I freak out in these times, but God is patient with us. He works with our fear and calmly reassures us He is going nowhere, ever. He will never leave me, nor you. He will never forsake us. In fact, He loves us and is for us, always.