TRUST. It is a foundational word in Christianity, right up there next to “faith” and “love” and “forgiveness.” …AND it is definitely a word I take issue with.
It is found in the Bible hundreds of times (221 times in the New Living Translation, to be exact):
With all this talk of trusting in God and/or placing your trust in God, what does “trust” really mean?
Dictionary.com defines it 23 ways, including:
...AND there we have our problem. Reliance.
Reliance means depending, believing, KNOWING that what I’m trusting is, well, trustworthy.
That he will not leave me stranded all alone, that he will not take what I have not given him, that he will not betray me. That I won't fall a very long distance and lie in pieces on the ground.
But sometimes, I think trust is only choosing the best of the bad. Trust is sometimes just hoping as a substitute for despair. Trust is sometimes clinging to the buoy amid lightening and waves, not because it is where you want to be, but because you have no alternative.
Trust is sometimes all that is left.
My daughter was born 6 weeks prematurely. I had been on bed rest for months, and when my blood pressure skyrocketed and my contractions continued, my baby girl was born. Twelve people were in the room when she was born, and I barely glimpsed her head before she was taken away. She did not take a first breath on her own. She just lay there, still and bluish, and I saw the scurry of activity – tubes being inserted, her tiny body, only hours in this world, being poked with needles and pressed upon with unfamiliar fingers.
She took her first breath with the help of a machine that filled her tiny lungs with oxygen. I didn’t hold her in my arms for 12 days. She laid cradled in a nest of blankets and wires and tubes, her tiny feet kicking sometimes against the daily pricks of her heels. When I couldn’t carry her anymore in my body, she was born. When she couldn’t live without assistance, I trusted.
I trusted that the hospital and doctors could save her. It was not because I knew that they were dependable and it wasn’t because there was a firm conviction in my heart that she would survive. It was because, in absence of trust, I had only horrifying despair and sadness. It was because, in absence of trust, I had no hope.
I was forced to trust these people, who had not felt her tiny movements inside them. They had not heard her heartbeats with rapt wonder or read to her or prayed for her or dreamt of her future, or LOVED her with every fiber of their being before they saw her tiny face. But I was forced to trust that these people would give her life and a future. I trusted them simply because they were the only line I had to hope. They were my buoy and I clung desperately to them.
I would love to say that during those weeks, and after the 5am call from the Neonatologist that roused us from our beds and sent us to the hospital on her 8th day of life...
...during the hours when I was alone, without a child, my breasts leaking the milk that was to be her sustenance, my body aching for a child that still belonged inside of it...
...that I trusted God and God alone. But I cannot say that.
This whole “trust journey” has been a lifelong battle for me. When I think of trusting, I think of failure – my own failure and the potential failure of others.
When I think of trust, I think of loss –loss of innocence, loss of inhibitions, loss of control.
I don’t trust anyone – God included – unless it is absolutely necessary.
But Christians are so centered on this concept that trust is something you can give God, not only because he has earned it, but because he requires it. How is trust demanded, I wonder?
And then I think about my girl, so tiny and helpless, and I think that trust is required in the same way my trust was required that quiet morning of June when my baby was born. It is required because, as Christians, we have no other buoy to cling to. ((It is earned, too, they tell me.))
My baby girl got out of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and got to go home 21 days after her birth. Except for having hearing loss as a side effect of the medications and oxygen she was given on those first days and weeks of life, she is a normal, happy, healthy girl. She is beautiful and creative and extraordinarily trusting. I think I started her off right.
As I am looking toward Lent and giving up the distractions and noise that surround me, I realize that I am, once again, entering unknown territory.
I feel afraid.
In trying to hear myself, and trying to listen to God and the sounds of life around me, I am again tentatively reaching for a buoy.
Anxious tendrils of hope wrapped around this being called God.
...but there's another part to that definition of trust I mentioned earlier. Trust is a two-way street. It carries not only the confidence of the trustor (that's me), but also an obligation or responsibility imposed on a person in whom confidence or authority is placed.
God has a job too. An obligation, in fact, to my trust.
And I think… I am learning to trust. Sure, I'm full of fear and trepidation...
but I’m clinging to the hope that the fear will give way to the peace of ((reasonable)) certainty.
I think that's what the Christians call relationship.
It is found in the Bible hundreds of times (221 times in the New Living Translation, to be exact):
I trust in you for salvation, O Lord! (Genesis 49:18)
I trust in your unfailing love. I will rejoice because you have rescued me. (Psalms 13:5)
The Lord is my strength and shield. I trust him with all my heart. He helps me, and my heart is filled with joy. I burst out in songs of thanksgiving. (Psalms 28:7)
But when I am afraid, I will put my trust in you. (Psalms 56:3)
We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. (I John 4:16)
With all this talk of trusting in God and/or placing your trust in God, what does “trust” really mean?
Dictionary.com defines it 23 ways, including:
Trust–noun
Reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, surety, etc., of a person or thing; confidence; confident expectation of something; hope; the obligation or responsibility imposed on a person in whom confidence or authority is placed
–verbRELIANCE upon the integrity, strength, ability, or surety of a person…. Confident expectation… hope.
to have trust or confidence in; rely or depend on; hope; to believe; to permit to remain or go somewhere or to do something without fear of consequences
...AND there we have our problem. Reliance.
Reliance means depending, believing, KNOWING that what I’m trusting is, well, trustworthy.
That he will not leave me stranded all alone, that he will not take what I have not given him, that he will not betray me. That I won't fall a very long distance and lie in pieces on the ground.
But sometimes, I think trust is only choosing the best of the bad. Trust is sometimes just hoping as a substitute for despair. Trust is sometimes clinging to the buoy amid lightening and waves, not because it is where you want to be, but because you have no alternative.
Trust is sometimes all that is left.
She took her first breath with the help of a machine that filled her tiny lungs with oxygen. I didn’t hold her in my arms for 12 days. She laid cradled in a nest of blankets and wires and tubes, her tiny feet kicking sometimes against the daily pricks of her heels. When I couldn’t carry her anymore in my body, she was born. When she couldn’t live without assistance, I trusted.
I trusted that the hospital and doctors could save her. It was not because I knew that they were dependable and it wasn’t because there was a firm conviction in my heart that she would survive. It was because, in absence of trust, I had only horrifying despair and sadness. It was because, in absence of trust, I had no hope.
I was forced to trust these people, who had not felt her tiny movements inside them. They had not heard her heartbeats with rapt wonder or read to her or prayed for her or dreamt of her future, or LOVED her with every fiber of their being before they saw her tiny face. But I was forced to trust that these people would give her life and a future. I trusted them simply because they were the only line I had to hope. They were my buoy and I clung desperately to them.
I would love to say that during those weeks, and after the 5am call from the Neonatologist that roused us from our beds and sent us to the hospital on her 8th day of life...
...during the hours when I was alone, without a child, my breasts leaking the milk that was to be her sustenance, my body aching for a child that still belonged inside of it...
...that I trusted God and God alone. But I cannot say that.
This whole “trust journey” has been a lifelong battle for me. When I think of trusting, I think of failure – my own failure and the potential failure of others.
When I think of trust, I think of loss –loss of innocence, loss of inhibitions, loss of control.
I don’t trust anyone – God included – unless it is absolutely necessary.
But Christians are so centered on this concept that trust is something you can give God, not only because he has earned it, but because he requires it. How is trust demanded, I wonder?
And then I think about my girl, so tiny and helpless, and I think that trust is required in the same way my trust was required that quiet morning of June when my baby was born. It is required because, as Christians, we have no other buoy to cling to. ((It is earned, too, they tell me.))
My baby girl got out of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and got to go home 21 days after her birth. Except for having hearing loss as a side effect of the medications and oxygen she was given on those first days and weeks of life, she is a normal, happy, healthy girl. She is beautiful and creative and extraordinarily trusting. I think I started her off right.
As I am looking toward Lent and giving up the distractions and noise that surround me, I realize that I am, once again, entering unknown territory.
I feel afraid.
In trying to hear myself, and trying to listen to God and the sounds of life around me, I am again tentatively reaching for a buoy.
Anxious tendrils of hope wrapped around this being called God.
...but there's another part to that definition of trust I mentioned earlier. Trust is a two-way street. It carries not only the confidence of the trustor (that's me), but also an obligation or responsibility imposed on a person in whom confidence or authority is placed.
God has a job too. An obligation, in fact, to my trust.
And I think… I am learning to trust. Sure, I'm full of fear and trepidation...
but I’m clinging to the hope that the fear will give way to the peace of ((reasonable)) certainty.
I think that's what the Christians call relationship.
Let go and let God~~~
ReplyDeleteYou trust Him more than you know....
We all have fear...[raise your hand if you do]...mine is raised!!!
Thing is, even though I am going through heartbreak, heartache, not to mention feeling personal loss of trust from a friend I thought I trusted...
I know from all of this I have to be still....
Still so I can understand what God wants to teach me....patient that others may also learn, and travel through the road they are supposed to no matter how hard it may be....we are all learning...
....and even though I may not like the outcome, I understand there is something He wants me to learn so I [will] grow~~
....it's simple...
God is not random, and. He is always at work....
~~~hug
DG