A Work In Progress

I was in a discussion with the rest of my church’s writing team last night about prayer. Something that came up was trust…specifically how it is enterwined with our ability to be real when we talk to God.

This is important. I have to patience for someone who’s fake with me. If you’re not going to be authentic and you’re going to hand me canned phrases and cliches in an attempt to communicate, then don’t communicate with me. Tell me how you feel. If you like me, tell me. If you think I suck, tell me. I want to know. I may not care, but I want to know where I stand with you.

Isn’t God the same way? Doesn’t He want authenticity in our prayers? He wants us to trust Him, doesn’t He? He wants us to know that He has our best interests at heart, and that He will take care of us. That’s so much easier said than done though. Some have had supportive, loving family memebers in their past, and trust is an easy thing for them. Some can trust what others say about God, and believe others when they say God has always taken care of them. Others really need God to prove it. The issue is, how can God prove when we won’t give it up to Him? Trusting someone involves going out on a limb, or, in church-speak, “a leap of faith.” How can we learn to trust God if we won’t give up an aspect of our lives for Him to take care of? Or our whole lives?

Catch 22.

I realized this week that sometimes, I really don’t trust God. Because in order to trust someone, we want to see them as safe. The bottom line about God is, as C.S. Lewis said, He’s good, but He’s not safe. He never said that.

How do I talk to Him when I have issues trusting Him? I’m not alone, here. How many of us don’t really want to trust Him because we’re afraid He’ll do something in our lives to make us uncomfortable? Like make us end up in Iceland or something ridiculous like that? We’re afraid that if we say we’ll give our lives to Him, He’ll take us up on it.

I don’t have an answer here. A lot of times, I can totally trust Him with whatever. Sometimes I can’t.

I’m working on it.

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