Trust is a hard word. It is not about what actions we must take as much as it is about what we must let go of in order for us to truly live into trust. I don’t always start my blogs with a story, but I really want to do that today. You may find that it challenges the stories of your faith, but you also might see something in the story that you have not noticed before. So come along, listen as I tell it
Years ago, long before you or I experienced life, a man was faced with death. He had spent his long life, almost a century of living, hearing tales about a man who had murdered his brother. The lessons that his father, grandfather, and the elders of his people taught him through that story was the value of all human life as well as the consequences of taking another’s away. Over his years of experience, he had seen the destruction upon people when murder took place. It shook his small tribe of people with devastation. Many never were emotionally the same again. Families were torn apart as retribution was sought by the wronged.
Yet here he sat tonight by the warmth of the village fire pondering his own personal dilemma. He felt no warmth from the flames as they danced within the stone ring. He was alone in his thoughts and gratefully alone from the presence of others. Tears flowed unabashedly down his cheeks making him that more appreciative that no other sat with him. It did not serve a leader well to have his servants see such an expression of emotion. The words rang not in his ears, but in his heart as they played over and over. “Abraham. Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you.
Had he misunderstood? Did the God that he worshiped, that he required his own family and servants to worship truly want him to take another human’s life breath? And would he ask this excruciating task of the one thing dearest to him? Had he chosen wrong? Had the Mesopotamians been right? No, how could that be. His God had been faithful. He had come to him physically. He had shown him so many truths. No, he was not wrong, the great “I am” was the only God. (Gen. 22.2)
I love retelling stories. I jump into the pages of Scripture and make the scenes come alive in my mind. Most of the time, I’m probably not close, but it helps me to connect with the stories. Abraham is so far removed from us in time that it is hard to understand his story as personal. But he was a real human. He experienced honest and raw emotion that in times such as these broke his heart. He was a man’s-man. A herdsman, in charge of the daily lives of many people, he was rugged and calloused by life. Like you and I, Abraham was real.
The Bible uses Abraham’s story about his intended sacrifice of Isaac as an example of faith. I think it runs a little deeper. I’m not suggesting that the Bible is wrong, just that the story encompasses more than one aspect of our lives. Certainly, this biblical hero had to have an incredible amount of faith to follow through with such a horrid task. Don’t you think that running parallel to faith he had to trust?
Going back to the beginning of this blog, I mentioned that trust requires more of us than most of us acknowledge. We have to be truly vulnerable. I don’t know about you, but that is not my strong point. I don’t like cold temperatures, I don’t like being called out in front of others, I don’t like being the center of attention. All of these things require something of me. They make me feel as if I lack some inner strength or capacity.
Yet, trust is one of the best decisions an individual can make when they are seeking to make positive changes in their lives. When I went through my divorce, I suddenly found myself jobless and homeless. It wasn’t just me though. I had five kids who had just experienced the most painful thing in their lives, and I was the only one holding the answers. Except I didn’t have any answers. At least not any that would solve my current problem. Like Abraham, I felt like I was drowning in sorrow.
Faith or trust make us the most vulnerable. We must allow ourselves to be cared for by others. We must give up control of our niche of the world so that the difficult or negative can be shifted. Did you know that most of the Western world is shaped, at its core, in thought and lifestyle by Hellenistic patterns? Our mindsets come out of ancient Greek and Roman cultures that filtrate into our religion, our government, our traditions. I don’t know about you, but Romans, in their prime, were pretty hardcore individuals. They were not typically seen as vulnerable, but rather as leaders and gods. If this is ingrained in our make-up, then it’s going to be hard to put our lives into someone else’s even temporarily.
Here are a few ways that you might make it easier.
- Choose someone who is willing to see the whole you to help you make the journey. A counselor, spiritual guide, pastor, mentor, etc. should never disregard those things that hold value for you.
- Make the decisions with them, don’t let them decide without your consent.
- Keep your focus on the finish line – even if you’re not sure what it looks like yet.
The other side of Abraham’s story that I did not share is that never once did God say to him, ‘you have to do this on your own.’ In fact, he said, ‘when you get there, I’ll be with you to show you.’ God never abandoned Abraham and he knew him so well that he was sensitive to how much he could handle. God did not say to Abraham ‘you will do this or else.’ Instead, God waited for Abraham to consent. Finally, Abraham saw the entire picture even though he could not see an option outside of Isaac dying. He knew God, he trusted God, and he believed that the God who had never let him down before would be there at the end of his physical and emotional journey.
You are not alone! On the front page of my website, is a link to email me. It’s there because I want to hear about your journey. It’s there because some of you might need me to travel with you.
-blessings
Monica Swank 