"Blank" is in my future

Eleanor Roosevelt once said; “ The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” She was a smart lady. If you think about it, the future is not at all concrete. We have no idea what it will be like, look like, or feel like. The future is not like the past either. The past is made up of facts. We know what happened, how it happened and what it felt like to be there. The future is not like the present, the present is a state of awareness. We know where we are, what is going on around us and how we feel about current situations. The present is also this crazy magical time where we can make things happen. The present, right now, is when we can dream of the future. The present is the time where we can take steps, make choices and most important, dream dreams that can form our future. I have dreamed a few dreams of my own for my future. I dream of a family. My children, curly haired and rosy cheeked laughing and playing in our back yard at dusk. My husband and I dancing in the kitchen to oldies while making breakfast on a sunny Saturday morning. Serving my God and his bride the church wherever he leads me, and seeing great life change in people as I do so. I dream of traveling to the four corners of the world. Seeing cliffs and oceans, jungles and great metropolises. I dream that I will forever be surrounded by great art, amazing music, good people, and tasty food everywhere I go. I dream of beach picnics and Christmas with my family.
Now, I have no idea if any of this will actually happen in my future, but I am hoping that Mrs. Roosevelt is right. All I know is that I can dream now, in the present for the things I desire in the future. However, one day, the present will suddenly become the future and I am sure that I will dream then Just as much as I do now. Dreaming has been a part of my past, present and will certainly be in my future.

Open Mouth Insert Foot?

I was asked recently to write a teaching on trust. I wrote a teaching based out of Matthew Chapter 8. In this chapter around verse 13 or so, Jesus meets a Roman Centurion.
Here, I am going to pause for a moment to let you in on what a Roman Centurion is. A Centurion is a captain in the Roman army. They were pretty Legit. Think Gladiator, but for real. Yeah, they were some bad Mofo's.
Ok so, this big Gladiator Centurion goes up to Jesus and explains that his servant is sick, on the edge of death. He asks Jesus to please heal him before it's to late. Jesus then tells the captain that he will come to his house to heal the servant.
However, and this is where things get crazy but awesome, The Roman captain, gladiator, centurion guy who is probably 3 times the size of Jesus and probably like a super macho manly man says to Jesus that there is no need for him to come to the house. He believed that Jesus could heal his servant right there in the middle of the street who knows how far away from the servant they were.
Jesus right then turned to the crowed and said that he had yet to see the same "simple trust" among the people like this guy had. The Bible says that Jesus was taken aback.
That's what gets me. Jesus was taken aback. Like, who does that to the king of the freaking universe... But you know, I don't think it was just merely because of the this guy and the fact that he had something Jesus didn't know about, I think Jesus was relieved. He was taken aback because finally, someone got it.
To us, Trust isn't so simple. As I was reading this preparing to write this teaching I hooked into the the phrase "simple trust" because to me that sounds crazy. I literally felt like Jesus was telling me the equivalent of "Ashley you have aliens living in your toilet"
Crazy right?
But seriously, simple trust is a foreign concept now-a-days. I mean, think about how often you have a conversation with a friend, or spouse, or relative where you discuss earning, gaining, or losing trust. Those are pretty loaded words;

earn, gain, and loss.

Loss being the word that holds the most weight. Most, if not all, of us have a story from our lives where someone has lost our trust or we lost threes. We have all been in a situation where we have reached out to someone and they just dropped the ball, and that can hurt really bad and leave a scar in our memory. I called this in the teaching a "Human Mentality of Trust". So many times we have had someone betray or break our trust, so that now trust is sort of jaded. It comes with a price. We've been hurt before, so what makes this time any different?
So, with this mentality in mind, if someone came up to you that you didn't really know and told you just to simply trust them with your life, you'd look at them like they're talking at the speed of crazy. right?
But what we have to realize is that God isn't like us. We aren't perfect, he is.
If someone wrote out in a book your life, how many would actually what to read it? I mean, every things in there, every success, failure, lie, truth, cheat, scandal, broken promise. Everything. I would take mine off of the shelf and bury it. lol
It would hold our track record. The wrongs we have done.
So (super cheesy moment) The Bible is God's track record, but see his doesn't have broken promises, it only has examples and proof that he came true on his word.There are countless examples; David, Hagar, the Roman Centurion, and like a billion more.
So with a clean track record like that, Trust is simple.

Yeah, that was my teaching. To trust God, it's simple.

Then a few weeks later I find myself freaking out about my future and where I am going to be in 6 months. I thought to myself "wow Ash way to not do anything you preached about."
My faith and trust was just not up to Parr.
I had a friend tell me once that if I didn't have faith and trust in my God enough to believe that he could raise someone from the dead, then my faith and trust was too small. I think about that every time I freak out. I have a savior who raised my brothers from the dead, and delivered them from there enemies, a savior who protected my sisters and there families.
So why shouldn't I trust in him?
It should be simple, we are the ones who make it hard.
Practice what you preach.