Trust (v.) -from Old Norse treysta “to rely on or to make strong and safe.” Trust (n.) – “reliance on the veracity, integrity, or other virtues of someone or something; religious faith,” from Old Norse traust “help, confidence, protection, support and/or comfort.”
“Many people pray as though to overcome the will of a reluctant God, instead of taking hold of the willingness of a loving God.” From Came to Believe
Trust.
One little simple word that strikes both fear and at the heart of my spiritual reality.
It is one simple word and yet my entire spiritual foundation, and journey, rests on those five letters. Without it I am lost to the chaos of a random universe leaving me unattended and directionless in a world filled with anxiety and anger.
If I am really honest, I mean honest in the way that raises eyebrows and strains the freedom I have in Christ, my faith is a mess, my trust is a joke, and I do not have me shite together.
But…
I am surrounded by grace: a grace that says, you are not your yesterdays; grace that says all is forgiven and the cross proves it. I must trust that God pours out his grace on me because God is trustworthy, ever reminding me that I am perfect when I am weak because grace seeps into us through our cracks and wounds and is perfected in weakness (2 Cor. 12:9).
So, I am not called to clarity or certainty nor perfection but trust. Scriptures echo this truth – the Psalms going so far as to say that I am blessed when I trust God…not when I am perfect or have the right theology or am working a perfect program of recovery, but blessed when I trust God.
I am feeble, weak, arrogant and angry…but I am loved and called by One named Faithful and True, worthy of my trust and worthy of the wreckage known as Niles. In growing in my trust of God, I am invited to ease into a life of “progress not perfection” knowing that trust is not only historic but must be dynamic, animated daily through prayer and encounters with God and with the beauty’full people that cross my path.
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