The True Darkness of Distrust

This piece was published in advance of a sermon about trust on 2/13/11

the true darkness of distrust

Trust is a slippery word. I trust my teenage son, but I'm not going to leave him unsupervised with matches and flammables. I trust in our political system but I surely don't believe every politician. I trust my business partner but we still maintain good accounting records. The phrase "trust, but verify" describes the kind of trust I'm talking about.

But what about when it comes to trusting God? We can't "supervise" God. We can't verify all things we supposedly entrust to God, but can only hope that one day we'll be able to verify that we were right to trust God. I suppose you'd also call this faith.

is that a "sunday school" answer?

When the Psalmist says, "when I am afraid, I put my trust in you" (56.3), I'm left wondering how do I do that? In the midst of real fear, real tragedy, or real suffering, how exactly do I trust in God? I get frustrated when I'm told, "Just trust God more, everything will be fine," even though I've used the line myself. Does that line mean I need to pray more? Read my Bible more? Do more good deeds to get God's attention? I have to be satisfied to "trust, but not verify" because it is only over time that we can look backward, see what God has done, and believe that God is a God of consistency and will see us through the next big thing.

finding solid ground

The best I can tell you is that trusting God is rather like standing at the water line on a beach as the tide sucks the sand from beneath your feet. You know there's terra firma somewhere down there, but you have to get buried to your calves to find it. You keep on sinking until you find a place to stand. So maybe trusting God is about standing still long enough to let your soul sink into the truth of God. And maybe trusting God is not about doing more, but simply being more present to the God in the moments of life. Maybe trusting God more is not about gathering doctrines or truths to be our firm place to stand, but about emptying ourselves of self through worship, even if that worship looks like wailing despair.

I hope you'll join us for worship on Sunday, where we'll think about this more in a sermon called The True Darkness of Distrust.

It'll be great.

Trust me,
Pastor Gary