Trust

 

I’ve never thought about bank names before.  So many are named XXX Bank and Trust.  The XXX is really the name, the rest is what they want us to do: bank and trust.  We give them huge amounts of money, banking with them, and then we trust. Yes, they all have some Federally-backed insurance --- up to a limited amount.  Any deposits above that are given in trust.  We trust it will be there in an emergency.  It will be there when we retire.  It will be there for our children when we’ve gone.  To these strangers in a building down the street, we trust --- a lot.  So, why do we find it so hard to trust in God?

God is the author of all life, our lives, our children’s lives.  Our past and our future are gifts from Him, whether we fully understand the magnitude of these gifts or not.  As a Father, He watches over us.  As His children, meant to grow in holiness to be like Him, He does sometime let us fall.  Lessons must be learned, sometimes the hard way.  But even as we choose to go our own way, like the Prodigal Son, we can return.  And He waits.  And sometimes, like the Prodigal Son, our return is as a last resort when we don’t know what else to do.  (Why do we get so far away before we return?)  We’re like that lost sheep, wandering away to see if we can find something better than what He offers us.  And then, like Adam and Eve who chose to go their own way, we’re surprised to see we are lost. 

I saw a video the other day showing a sheep farmer calling his sheep, which were out grazing in a field.  At his call, their heads all lifted up and looked his way.  Then they began rushing toward the shepherd.  They came to him because they trusted he would be good to them.  They trusted him, not like with some money in the bank, but with their very lives.  Visually, it was a good lesson, but left unsaid was: how did they come to know him that well? 

So, how do we come to know and trust God?

I believe Jesus came as a turning point in man’s relationship with God, because with a human example we could better understand God, and how a child of His should grow up to become like Him, and we can trust Him.  Looking back over my years, I’ve gradually learned a lot about God.  And I can also recall the many times I seemed lost, but He was there.  In the history of our family, our country, our Church, our world, my studies show that there were many times when things got so bad, they could have ended, when all could have been lost.  And I could see God’s loving hand there, saving us.  That’s the kind of history, really reflected upon and with all that Jesus taught us, that should help build our trust.

A few years back, I felt God telling me, showing me, that while I lived most of my life trying to know Him better, and live as He created me to live, I was entering another stage of my life.  He was beginning to take care of me more --- as He will to the end.  Oh, He’s shown me in so many ways that I’m still here for a reason, only not for the events I was largely in control of in the past.  Where I may have helped hundreds through charities, and even my work at Ford, now it was less.  It was more personal.  Help that one, He nudges me, or I can see another needing help and I feel Him saying: “Well?”  And sometimes I’m just a step in helping them, and I never see the end results.  But I know Him better now; I trust.  Often.

I didn’t say I usually trust, but only often.  I’ve also become more aware of the ones He gives me to help that I fail.  And when He indicates a small step He wishes me to take, I still often want to take charge --- and then screw things up, trying to do everything when I didn’t even know what His total plan is.  So more than ever, I have learned I need to trust Him.  But He still must remind me now and again.

I have been praying The Litany of Trust prayer for a long time.  It’s on a card in my prayer book, but I’m not sure where I found it.  It has no markings.  Then in the past few weeks that exact prayer has come up in 5 separate groups I’ve watched or participated in.  It suddenly seems everywhere to me. 

And as I write these words in the chapel, I prayed The Chaplet of Divine Mercy, as I do every day, but I saw with new eyes what I was praying.  At the very start of the Chaplet we pray three times: “O Blood and Water, which gushed forth from the Heart of Jesus as a fount of mercy for us, I trust in You.”  And at the end of the Chaplet, we repeat again three times “I trust in You.”  The Divine Mercy image of Jesus, as I have on my house entrances, says at the bottom:  I Trust in You.

With all these occurrences of “Trust Me” He’s trying to tell me, and us all, something.  We need to remember, even if it gets hard, He does all things for the Father who loves us.  We need to trust in Him, especially in these dark times.

Who Are You?

 

A couple of days ago, I was invited to a meeting of people from area churches to plan an event together.  The first item on the meeting agenda was: Introductions.  As I drove around that afternoon, I thought of what I might say when it was my turn.  Then, suddenly, the thought came to me: “All my life has been about helping those in need.”  What??!!  Where did that come from?  I had never considered or described myself in that way before, but also just as suddenly, I knew it was true.  And I knew that was how God saw me, and He had given me that thought.  And I cried.

At the meeting that night I didn’t say that prideful-sounding statement, but I said that in my many years I had belonged to most of the churches represented there, and served in most of the areas represented by the people present.  I implied I had experience to contribute to the meeting.  That’s all.  Next.

Two days later I went to my monthly confession.  As I sat beforehand, my thoughts went to that insight God had given me a couple of days earlier, on helping others in need.  During my life when God showed me what He wanted done, I DID strongly go about making it happen, but not because I thought it was God’s will.  I often forced things to be done, because I wanted them done, because I thought the things were the right things to do, because I thought they were MY ideas, MY will.  And I thought I was right in my thinking and my actions.  It was all about me.

I thought now, in the confession line, I should confess that I didn’t ask often enough for God to tell me His will, and also the times when I tried to do (what I now know was) His will, but I let others stop me because I didn’t try hard enough.  I was focused on myself.  And then in my heart I heard:

“I loved them anyway.”

It was another thought from nowhere.  And suddenly I now knew what I should be confessing. It had nothing to do with who I am or what I accomplished or failed at, but it was how I did it.  I was focused on the deed, accomplishing what I wanted to do, not on the people around me.  Early in the Gospel of Matthew Jesus expounded on the Beatitudes, a further deepening of the Commandments, on what we should do or not.  All the rest of the Gospels, and especially in that of John, He explained and demonstrated HOW we should live our lives.

Yes, I was able to help many in need during my life, and I chose to do so.  I DID choose to love the poor, the hungry, and those in need.  I did what Jesus spoke of.  But what about HOW Jesus did those things?  It is not enough to just do His will, we have to do it with love.  What about His disciples, the Jewish leaders and people, and the Roman guards who didn’t understand and/or opposed Him?   And in my world, what about my co-workers, my office bosses, or my spouse when they opposed me?  Did I choose to love them the same anyway?  When they got in the way of my wishes, even of my doing what I KNEW was God’s will, did I love them?  He said: “I loved them anyway.”  I didn’t. 

“Lord, I am sorry for all those people You gave me to love, but I chose not to.  I resolve to do better, and be who You created me to be.”

These last couple of days I have had some great insights given me about who I am, in His eyes.  And what I still had to learn.

What about you, when people get in your way?  Who are you?

 

- - - - - - - - - -

The event meeting is about the feast of Corpus Christi, on June 2.  The churches, for two hours on the Sunday afternoon, will celebrate the day and Christ’s gift of the Eucharist, with a procession, songs, praise, and more, TBD in our planning.  I was given a dream about how that procession would please God, and deepen the beliefs of those present.  I wrote out the details as I recalled them.  But I will not share those details with the planners.  I perceive to do so would be much like how I lived my life in the past, doing what I believed was right.  No, I will try to be who He created me to be.  To do His will, yes, but to do it with love.  And if things are not perfect in His eyes, well, when have we ever been perfect.

He will love us anyway.

Real Trust

 

Last night I had one of those rare dreams, which I knew was God speaking to my soul, or vice versa.  I awoke and quickly jotted down some notes, so I wouldn’t forget.

I dreamt of an event which happened in the late 1990s.  I was chair of the Paint the Town (PTT) project, which painted and repaired homes of the elderly and low-income in Detroit (and which spread to 8 suburbs).  On the third Saturday of August that year, over 10,000 volunteers were scheduled to paint over 400 homes.  At that point, PTT was at its peak, and after 15 years it had never rained on that day --- only this year the forecast said otherwise.  I received lots of calls asking what day we’d re-schedule to, but I said “Wait, forecasts change.”  This one didn’t. 

As we picked up the rental trucks the day before, it was pouring rain.  My board members said “this is a waste of money.”  The forecast said there was a 95% chance of rain for the next day.  But, I reminded my friends of the huge sums of money already committed to that day.  While the thousands of gallons of paint and many supplies were donated --- the volunteers showed up only wearing the event shirts we bought and gave them --- still, we paid for extra police protection, ambulance availability, porta-johns, and over $10,000 in insurance for that one day; average people were going up on ladders, some over 3 stories tall.  The insurance was to protect myself and board members from lawsuits.  None of that money could be recovered, and we had little in the bank to buy more --- if the people and supplies and were available on another day.  “No,” I said.  “There is a 5% chance of no rain; we are doing God’s work; we need to trust in Him.”  Back at the office I saw the large number of calls I had received, and I put that message on my answering machine and didn’t answer my phone the rest of the day.

The day of the event there were dark clouds in all directions, except up, where it was blue sky and sun.  To everyone’s surprise, not a drop fell, and all the homes got painted.  And rains began after about 10PM that night, after all the paint had dried.  “It was a miracle,” many people said, and thanked me for not trying to re-schedule the PTT event.

I dreamt about those events last night.  This morning, I had a Bible Study class.  We were reflecting on tomorrow’s Gospel, the end of the Gospel of St. John, where Jesus appears and tells the doubting Thomas to “put your hands in My side.”  We looked at that Gospel from many sides, and its many messages.  I think in the end we understood that Gospel better, and perhaps understood our lives a little better also.  It was then that I recalled my vivid dream, and related it to the men.  There was a jump to “that’s the kind of trust we need to have,” but I found myself disagreeing.  “No, that was trusting when I could see no other alternative.  Trusting in Jesus was a last resort.  That’s not the kind of trust we need; that’s the kind Thomas initially had.”  I realized that back then I had a foundation of trust, so I could voice it, but I still had a lot of lessons to learn.

If it had rained that day, ruined and wasted the work of thousands of volunteers, and perhaps ended the PTT project from ever occurring again --- and people laughed at me.  If THEN I trusted in God’s love, that would have been trust. 

Praying to God and getting the things we want is not a prayer of trust.  “Not my will, but Thy will be done,” is a prayer of trust.  We need to sincerely pray that prayer, especially when thing seem their darkest.  We need to grow in trust of God, to trust in Him, ALWAYS --- as if He REALLY WERE GOD.

Tomorrow is Divine Mercy Sunday.  That Divine Mercy prayer ends with: “Jesus, I trust in You.”