Practicing trust

 Proverbs 3:5-6. NRSV

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.

Trust in the Lord.  Not something that is always easily done.  Oh, I say I trust God, but I often have a really hard time actually leaving things in God’s hands.  Sometimes I am really good at it, but other times I fuss and worry over things, asking all the “what if” questions, thinking of all the ways something can go wrong, and second guessing myself.  We are taught, after all, to be independent, to be responsible for our own stuff, not to rely on others to do everything for us.  That makes it a bit harder to really let go and let God.    So what happens is often only sort of letting go . . . like a child asking her parent to fix a broken toy, then in a minute grabbing it back to fix it herself, even though she doesn’t really know what to do.

Before I could learn to trust God, I had to change what I believed about God.  After all, if all I know is that God is judgmental and quick to punish, willing to destroy all the people of the world with a great flood, telling his followers to kill everyone who doesn’t believe in him, even sending his own son to be killed in a particularly horrific way, I am not likely to want to put myself in his hands.  

If, however, I believe that God’s greatest desire is for the people of the world to be reconciled to God and to each other, that God loves me, forgives all my sins when I ask and am willing to accept the consequences of my actions . . . if I believe that God loves me and wants only to be loved in return, then trust comes more easily. That still doesn’t make it precisely easy. 

Trusting in God, allowing God to make straight my path, even to put me on the right path in the first place takes faith - and practice.  When I do all I can do in any given situation, then it’s time to give it to God, trusting that God will see me through to the other side.  I don’t always get it right, but they tell me practice can only help me improve, so I will continue practicing so that eventually I will get it right more often.

Trustworthy God, I am not always good at trusting you.  Sometimes l think I know the right outcome better than you do.  May I remember not to rely on my own human insight and thinking, but to allow you to set me on the right path and make it straight.  Amen.