You need to read more carefully. No where in anything that I wrote did I ever say a believer doesn't agree to faith / trust. That agreement is the inevitable outcropping of the recognition of the necessity of need for grace.
I trust because I've been awoken to see the need as well as the goodness from God's willingness to atone for me. Not only is there a trust there from the human end of the equation; there is also an ever deepening reciprocation of love. I know God better now and trust Him more than I did 30 years ago; which also equates to a more entrenched attachment to Him.
Even just yesterday; both my son and I were both reminded; and challenged in some respects of God's absolute sovereignty. My son has epilepsy and has been physically loosing ground in the past 6 months at least. He had an MRI done Monday and the pediatrician's office gave me a CD disk of the study. I picked up the CD Wednesday.
The report said there was nothing on the MRI but a cluster of malformed blood vessels in the posterior temporal lobe of the brain. (We already knew that was there.) While they were running the study; I saw something that was abnormal in his frontal lobe and when I opened the study Thursday evening, to really look at it; I found what I'd seen.
Well, he has a mass in the frontal lobe of the brain and I spent 3 hours just researching through normal MRI's to know for sure that was not suppose to be there. Well, the radiology report said nothing about the existence of this mass; so I called the doctor the next morning and said I wanted someone to see this.
I went in and showed the person we saw the report, as well as the images and the obvious discrepancy between the two. First she told me she had no expertise in reading radiology reports and I said you don't need expertise to see something is obviously there. She looked at it. (Yeah, something is obviously there.) Then she tried to tell me it was the angioma. That's when I lost it and started yelling at her. I told her: "How the flip did you ever got through medical school and not know the difference between the frontal and the temporal lobes of the brain?"
She finally admitted that yes, there is an obvious mass in the frontal love and she didn't have an answer for what was on the MRI, yet not in the report. She then tried to tell me to "wait and see" what doctor X, Y or Z says about it. I then told her: "If this is malignant; we aint got 2 months to "wait and see"!" Then I said: "What if this was your kid's MRI?" She suddenly shut up. I told her we need a second opinion. She said she'd call and see if she could get someone to read it again.
We went up to the hospital records office to order other scans to be sent to the neurologist. We then stopped at the coffee bar to get some coffee and something to eat and proceeded to the ER. I told the ER staff that I have a teenager exhibiting neurological issues; with a mass in the frontal lobe of the brain that is obvious on the MRI, but not even mentioned on the report and I'm not leaving here until I know whether or not my kid has brain cancer!
So I gave them the disk; they tracked down all radiological scans they had of him, both MRI's and CT scans and had their neurology doctors look carefully over all of them. The mass in the frontal lobe is calcification. It's not common in children and is probably a reaction between his genetics and infectious disease. The genetic mutation that might be causing this is probably linked to the epilepsy. We aren't going to know that until the genetic testing is done.
Before we left yesterday for the doctor's office (and ultimately the hospital) we prayed that God give us what ever courage and strength to face what ever this is. Give us peace; even if he dies from this, let him go in comfort that Your purposes will be accomplished in this.
And then I pulled up this song:
So now even though we still aint got an effective treatment plan for his epilepsy; (we at least know he aint got brain cancer) the future is still a mystery. The epilepsy / neurological disorders may still kill him. If that is the case; God already knows this though and He will bring both of us through that process, regardless of the outcome.