How Rob Knows

Faith is a gift from God, and it's faith in the unseen that's provided circumstantial proof to Rob that God is working and readily available to me at all times.

If you live long enough, at some point, you're going to experience emotional trauma.  Usually it involves abrupt, "undeserved" loss.  I use the latter term because it's the resulting pain from that trauma that triggers that descriptor, and typically what follows is the question of "What did I do to deserve this?".

As human beings, we rarely, if ever, have enough faith.  Our sin-nature is constantly working to diminish this purest, rarest, most precious of resources.  If we were to encounter loss with the necessary faith, there would be no discontent grown out of self-pity due to the fact that there would be little to no self left at that point within us.  Therefore, with no self, there's no stupid questions like, "What did I do to deserve this?".

And this leads me to the next reveal which I'll also utilize to finish out this emotional trauma reference.

Being born again results in God's spirit inhabiting man.  This spirit works in and through him, bringing about a temperament / persona that's not his own.  The Bible refers to this as the "fruits of the spirit".  All of these fruits are contrasted wildly to our sin nature, therefore they can bring about behaviors and even entire life circumstances that promulgate the consistent thriving / growth of those around us.  It's a way of living life that runs counter to our culture's notion of "do whatever makes you happy, you happy, you happy, you happy."

These fruits combined form one Voltron-like-robot-being called obedience.

And it's that obedience that ultimately provides a path for us to be healed of our trauma.  Though the scars will never fade, the horrible pain and suffering from the trauma lessens and lessens 'till it's gone.

What does that process look like exactly?

It depends on the individual.  It may involve counsel, community, or none of those, though time for healing to occur is a given.  And when you step out on the other side of that valley, the miracle of healing deepens your faith all the more by molding you that much further into the created being God wishes you to be.  It's change that brings about contentment which in turn nourishes faith in that which is unseen.

Lagniappe