Grammy-nominated vocalist, Featured speaker, Women of Faith (WOF) conferences and creator
of the popular Children of Faith Conferences
Former 700 Club co-host and Heart to Heart host
Lives in Dallas, Texas, with her husband, Barry, and their son, Christian
GUEST
Sheila Walsh: When a Woman Trusts God
CBN.com
– THE GREATEST GIFT
Trust is the greatest gift we can give God. Sheila says she believes that trust is what love looks like, and her latest book is an in-depth Bible study about how you can trust God. She wants to tell women (and others) that it is not just wishful thinking to be able to trust in God and have a deep relationship with Him. The key is getting to know who God is. It is easier to trust Him if we know who He is and know His heart.
In order for Sheila to trust God, she had to work out her fear. She had to face what was true about herself and embrace her brokenness – that was part of her help and healing. She says an important question to ask yourself is, “Do you trust the Heart of the One who is moving your heart?”
Sheila believes that when you trust God, it makes the angels rejoice. Trusting God becomes not about what you want, but you will just want to understand His heart. You will get to a point where you don’t have to understand His plans, you just want to know more about Him. When Sheila ultimately learned to trust the Lord she was finally able to “exhale.” She learned that you are only responsible for loving Him, you don’t get it “all right.” The people in the Bible didn’t get it all right. You get to be more childlike and want to follow Him more.
LEARNING TO TRUST
Before Sheila started on her journey of fully trusting the Lord, she was battling clinical depression. She found that the moments and feelings she has had of fear and uncertainty have always been about the same thing – a question from God, her father asking, “Sheila, do you trust me?” She answered “yes” to this question so many times only to find that the question was bigger than she had ever imagined. On her journey to trusting God, she found that she is one of thousands that Jesus continues to call back from fear to faith, from being crippled by doubt to being liberated by trust.
A few years later, Sheila did seem to have a new beginning. After leaving her job as a co-host for the 700 Club, she moved to California and went to seminary school. Later, she met and married her husband, Barry, and they became pregnant. This was a joyful time in their lives, but it was short-lived – it appeared that their baby would be severely handicapped. The following weeks and months were an emotional roller coaster, but Sheila had dug deeper and deeper into God’s Word – she was determined to trust God no matter what. She kept reading the passage from Proverbs 3:5-6: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight" (NASB).
She was asked to trust and learned to lean more and more on God. She began to ask God how to acknowledge Him in every area of her life. She leaned on a promise God had made to her to protect her baby. Near the end of her pregnancy, Sheila’s doctor gave her the news that nothing was wrong with her baby. They had mixed up the test results of Sheila’s and another woman’s, and Sheila’s baby was fine. From this event, Sheila learned that trusting God happened moment by moment. Also, the Lord was always there, strong, loving, and trustworthy.
PROCESS OF HEALING
Psalm 119 says God’s Word is a lamp unto our feet and we have to hold on to His Word, because this is what we do know. On her healing journey, Sheila would look at the characters in the Bible that she could relate to and try to apply these truths to her life. Even though she had read these Bible stories time and again, she found she didn’t have a practical understanding of them.
She had reread the story of Mary and Martha in the New Testament. In their story there is an instance where Jesus came too early and another one where Jesus came too late.
In the first instance, God seems to have come too early. Sheila learned that when God interrupts your schedule, ask what He wants you to do.
Later in the story, Jesus seemed to come too late to Mary and Martha when their brother Lazarus died. Sheila observed that even though He knew a remarkable miracle was about to take place, Jesus wept with them. Sheila looked up the Greek translation of “wept” and it said He burst into tears, uncontrollably. This shows us that Jesus feels our pain and grief profoundly.
God also sees our humanity. He made a covenant with Abraham. God told Abraham to look at the stars and they would be as numerous as his descendants. Abraham believed, and he chose to believe. The covenant God and Abraham had was the kind a king and his subject would have. In those days, both parties would usually walk through the sacrificial animals as part of the covenant rite, but God wouldn’t let Abraham walk through, God walked through it alone, meaning He took it on Himself.
Through the story of the prophetess Anna, Sheila learned that the process of waiting matters to God. Anna never left the temple. She fasted, prayed, and worshipped God day and night. Then, one day, she met the Savior in the temple. Anna’s story shows that we have to dig deep into God. Anna waited a lifetime on God to see the fulfillment of a dream, and the gift is who we became in the process of waiting. When we wait and trust in God’s presence, we become more like Christ.
Also in regards to waiting and trusting in God, Sheila shares some words from the apostle Paul. He said there will come a day when everyone will stand before Christ. Sheila believes it will be a one-on-one visit with Jesus to evaluate life. Many women serve without a lot of credit, or do jobs that may not be seen by others. On that day with Jesus, it will be revealed and those things do matter to God, they do make a difference.
THREE INDICATORS IT IS HARD FOR YOU TO TRUST
Sheila says that the following three things indicate that you may have a hard time trusting God:
- Feeling a need to control
- Fear/feeling afraid and anxious
- Feeling disconnected from God and others
ABOUT SHEILA
Sheila is a powerful inspirational communicator and a unique combination of author, speaker, worship leader, television talk show host, and Bible teacher.
She is a featured speaker with America's largest women's conference Women of Faith with over four million women in attendance. Sheila is the author of the best-selling memoir Honestly and the Gold Medallion Award nominee for The Heartache No One Sees. Her first fiction trilogy Angel Song is being released this year. Gigi, God's Little Princess, Sheila's line of books and videos for little girls, won the National Retailer's Choice Award and is the most popular Christian brand for young girls in the US. She is currently working on completing her Master of Divinity Degree.
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