As I prepare to study the book “Trusting God,” I am reflecting on the areas where I need to trust God.  The main things right now that I need to trust Him with are my kids, my deepest desires/wishes, who He says I am, and my eternal destiny.  Why, do you wonder, do I need to trust Him with my eternal destiny when I am a Christian?  I grew up Catholic, where I believed there were three places you could go when you die:  heaven, hell or purgatory.  The impression I got was that you didn't know where you would go; you would have to wait until you die and hope that you were somehow good enough to go.  I also got the impression that heaven was a hard place to be able to go to-at least directly.  I felt like people hoped for purgatory and then when you die the living would pray for your soul to go to heaven.  It was kind of a holding place. 

What set me over the edge on this subject was listening to a lady speak at one of the Catholic churches I went to.  She said that she believed that as long as she wore a certain necklace (of Mary I believe) she would not go to hell.  She hoped to go to purgatory and had no hope for heaven.  How crazy is that?!?!?!?  It wasn't soon after that I left for another church.  And it wasn't soon after that I left the Catholic faith altogether in favor of a church that speaks about grace and the hope of heaven.

So you can see from my background I had no hope for heaven.  I was never told how you get to go to heaven.  So I was left with the impression that God is angry and you have to somehow earn your way to heaven.  I needed to be good and follow the rules just like a little child must do with their parents.

While I have heard that God offers eternity to us as a free gift and have accepted it numerous times, my Catholic upbringing haunts me.  I question if I said the prayers right. I question if I truly chose to say the prayers or was only doing so because I was prompted to by a book I was reading.  I question my walk in life-I am not a good person.  I make mistakes and what if I forget to ask God to forgive a particular sin or numerous sins?  I am not good enough for God.  As you can tell, fall back into the performance trap as if somehow it were up to me to get into heaven.

My greatest hope in doing this study is not only to trust God with the daily things, but also grow in trusting Him with my eternal future.  I also hope to encourage those who struggle just like me with the need to do things just right in order to go to heaven.  The joy I and others like me are missing out on by not fully trusting God.