“Craving clarity, we try to eliminate the risk of trusting God. Fear of the unknown path stretching ahead of us destroys the childlike trust in the Father’s goodness and unrestricted love. We often presume that trust will dispel the confusion, illuminate the darkness, vanquish the uncertainty and redeem the times.”
Ruthless trust…what we as humans try to avoid, crave, are terrified by and drawn to. I am in a position right now in this life where I have thousands upon thousands of dollars in debt due to school loans. I left a good job to be humbled in asking you to support me with thousands more to follow where God was calling me to go. Writing that makes me feel as though I’m beginning the process of learning how to trust. However, there have been COUNTLESS times these past few months where my prayer for myself or others is clarity and not that I‘d be drawn into the peace of greater trust of the one who is trustworthy.
Clarity in what He’s calling me to today
Tomorrow
When I get home
Where I should live
Where I should work
Where He’s taking me
Who I’ll work with/for
How I will get my loans paid
Who will be my companion…when
I’ve prayed these things at times for myself as well possibly for you too…The common theme in much of these prayers is “I.” When reading this passage out of Ruthless Trust by Brennan Manning, it hit me upside the head. It made me realize that my desire for clarity can be a sign of mistrust. Now I’m not at all saying that clarity itself is bad. It is very much a good thing to have. However, we ought not base so many decisions, or lack there of, solely on if we are clear about it or completely understand it.
Abraham was told to leave his family and to go to a place that God would show him…
Joseph had a couple dreams from God about where God was taking him and then promptly was sold into slavery by his brothers…later when he was getting closer to seeing his dreams fulfilled he was thrown into jail for a couple years…
“Hey Noah…build an ark even though it has never rained before…don’t worry about the rest, I’ve got it”
“Hey, so why don’t all of you walk around this fortress called Jericho and on the seventh day I’ll take care of it.”
“Gideon…you have too many men! I want this to be 300 vs. tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands? I don’t recall.”
Over and over again in the Bible we have countless stories of how God does the absurd and leaves out the clarity or the game plan. He leads us into a position where we are forced to trust Him and time after time he proves that He is trustworthy. It’s incredible to me how much we as humans truly struggle with trusting. Most of you reading this right now have probably heard all the stories and more of God’s trustworthiness and faithfulness. I’d venture to even say that a vast majority of you also have something in your life that you are waiting to fully trust God with until you have a few more details so that you are certain that He will actually come through for you. Ohhh and by the way He did come through for the people mentioned above and desires to come through for you more than you desire for Him to come through. He delights in a heart that trusts fully on Him more than most things.
It is drastically easier to believe He will be faithful and trustworthy with someone else than it is for you. I know because I have the same problem…BUT He is also patient and He will keep showing us His trustworthiness…unfortunately part of this process looks the exact opposite of trustworthiness…
YOU are close to learning how to trust when the money isn’t coming in, when you have just lost your job, when you don’t know how to pay your bills, when you just had your relationship ended, when school just seems like too much to handle, when loving the people closest to you just seems so hard and especially when it appears as though YOUR WHOLE WORLD IS CRUMBLING AROUND YOU!!!
It is then that you may by His grace be in a place where you’ve exasperated your own options and you finally are at a place where you will be willing to give His a shot…You’ve lost just about everything already so what’s there to lose in depending on Him? Control…choosing to lose your control over your life is what you face. Trust takes surrender and it is hard…or it is easy. There is nothing that says you HAVE to be pushed to this point in order to trust. Trust is a decision of the heart much like faith is a decision of the mind. This choice could be today, or you could keep waiting for things to be clearer before you let Him take it…
He says to cast all your cares upon Him for He cares for you…
There are a lot of gems of wisdom and challenge in Ruthless Trust that I desire for you all to find. In fact, I have only made it past the first couple chapters and look forward to what I will find. However, I must warn you that there is a trap. This trap is where most of Christians (usually me included) tend to stumble. This trap consists of our brain. Faith is a matter of our head and when we are challenged with knowledge that strikes our heart, we often try to analyze and compartmentalize it in our head. We think of who else needs to hear this or how it would work in someone else’s life. However, trust is a matter of the heart and while we can leave unaffected when we use our heads, we will not leave unaffected if we tune our hearts to this message.
So trust…
Trust simply
Trust fully
Trust the one who created it…
