Trusting God

Romans 4: 1-5 The Message

Remember when you were a kid and you played "Do you trust me?" with your friends?  One person would turn their back on the other and the friend would open their arms and promise to catch the other as she fell backward.  Was that a hard game for you to play?  Why or why not?

Trust is a tricky thing isn't it?  Once it's betrayed it is very difficult to get back.  Seeds of doubt are planted that are very tough to get rid- like weeds that won't respond to Round Up.  We can try and try to get back in the mindset of trusting another person but just because we WANT to doesn't mean we CAN.

Trust requires forgiveness, and yet we can forgive someone and still not fully trust them after the fact, right?  Some part of us dies in a relationship when the trust is smashed to pieces by bad behavior, secrets, anger and betrayal.  Getting over that fully so that the relationship can continue can be a very difficult endeavor, not impossible to be sure, but a challenge none the less.

The world sends us all sorts of messages as it seeks to grab our trust:  Trust me I would never lead you down the wrong path.  Trust me I know what I'm talking about.  Trust me I would never hurt you.  Trust me you need this product to make your life better.  But this kind of trust is penultimate.  It is not trust that will ultimately bring life.


Trust is a very delicate and precious thing, not to be taken for granted, not to be abused or distorted but to be held delicately and with great care.  Where can we go when it seems that there is no one left to trust?  Where can we turn when we are wracked with feelings of betrayal, hurt by another's disloyalty, surrounded by treachery?  St. Paul says "back to God who makes us right again."  God brought Abraham into a right relationship, Abraham didn't do it, God did it.  And Abe trusted God to do it.  Even in the midst of our pain we have someone who will always do the right thing for us- not because we deserve it and certainly not because we have earned it by our hard work and perseverance!  But out of love God continually makes us right again through Jesus Christ!  That is something we can put our ultimate trust in!

Back to that childhood game of "Do you trust me?"  I always had a hard time with it.  My friends in the neighborhood were jokesters, so was my brother!  And they would catch me once just so I would feel secure but then the next time they would let me fall to the ground.  Oh how they would laugh!  I would laugh too but you better believe that the next time we played I was more cautious-- I would put my foot back to catch myself every time because I knew at some point they would let me crash.  I couldn't allow myself to feel secure in that game.  They noticed it too and would always comment, "Don't you trust us??"

Learning to trust God might be a little like that game.  We might mistake falling down with God not putting his arms out to receive us. . . bad things happen in life, just because we are Christians does not make us immune to struggles.  But God promises to be there to catch us when we fall.  When the world pushes us and jostles us around we still have one safe place in which to dwell-- that is in our Lord and Savior who not only catches us but holds us and comforts us.  God will not always take every bad thing away in order to protect us but each and every situation we encounter gives us another opportunity to grow and trust in the One who made us and who loves us most.  May you feel Christ's loving embrace today and may you trust God to take care of you no matter what else happens.  Amen.

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