The Answer for Moments of Fear, Pain, and Struggle
Why "trust" is not mere religious rhetoric
My entire life I have felt God’s care for me. By that I don’t mean everything has been perfect, that I always get my way, or that I never experience suffering. My parents divorced. My brother was killed in Vietnam. I’ve had melanoma twice. My wife has battled cancer for two decades and struggles with respiratory issues. Care does not mean the absence of pain or struggle.
On reflection, I’ve learned that an imperfect life, one that includes trouble and sorrow, is lived within a crucial context: God—in him we live and move and have our being. A normal life with cycles of joy and grief is like moving along through a garden, stumbling here and there on the stones laid out for a walkway, being poked by thorns, but all the while amidst the unavoidable aroma of roses—in our case—The Rose Maker.
Along the way in life, we all have moments of fear, of feeling unsafe and not sure we are reliably in God’s care. What do we do in those moments of stumbling, when we are hesitant about the exact next step? What do we do when we’ve not just missed a stepping stone, but we fear we’ve sprained an ankle and can’t move forward?
Our ancient biblical forbearers in faith have advice for us enshrined in the Bible:
When I am afraid, I put my trust in God.
(Psalm 56:3)
Because…
Lord, you keep those people safe who continue to trust in you.
You give them peace in their minds, because they believe in you.
(Isaiah 26:3, EASY)
So…
Depend on the Lord; trust him, and he will take care of you.
(Psalm 37:5, NCV)
Those ideas can sound like mere religious rhetoric.
But what if the thoughts above represent the real, lived experience of the people of God as they learned how to trust him? If things were perfect for them, if they never had a confusing challenge, why would the Bible speak so much about the issue of trust?
The historic people of God worked hard like us—and sometimes the return on their investment was meager.
They thought their best thoughts, but never completely banished painful mistakes. They planned diligently and then found out plans don’t always go to plan. This habit of trying to do your best is a central aspect of a trusting-in-God life. Because, as Eugene Peterson writes,
“Hoping/[trusting], does not mean doing nothing. It is not fatalistic resignation. It means going about our assigned tasks, confident that God will provide the meaning and the conclusions. [Trust] is not compelled to work away at keeping up appearances with a bogus spirituality. It is the opposite of desperate and panicky manipulations, of scurrying and worrying.
And hoping, [trusting] is not dreaming. It is not spinning an illusion or fantasy to protect us from our boredom or our pain. It means a confident, alert expectation that God will do what he said he will do. It is imagination put in the harness of faith. It is a willingness to let God do it his way and in his time. It is the opposite of making plans that we demand that God put into effect, telling him both how and when to do it. That is not [trusting] in God but bullying God.”
Could the word relax be an aspect of what Peterson described above as a willingness to let God do it his way and in his time? What if relax could become something other than a peaceful day off and become an aspect of following Jesus? It makes sense to me that being in the easy yoke of Jesus might include relaxing—a sense of ease and rest.
I’ve often sought to understand, and better yet experience what the writer of Hebrews meant by this promise:
So there is a special rest still waiting for the people of God. For all who have entered into God’s rest have rested from their labors, just as God did after creating the world. So let us do our best to enter that rest.
(Hebrews 4:9-11, NLT)
I haven’t always entered such rest, but I have done so enough to know that even in the most challenging moments of life, it is possible to trust and rest. I am not alone. Millions of Christians across space and time have testified to the goodness that comes from sincere trust: It softens clinched souls, expands cramping hearts, and relaxes anxious minds.
Dallas Willard once said to me, “Todd, we must find the goodness of God in our actual daily life as we presently know it—it is the soil of our discipleship to Jesus, the only place we can learn to trust God.”
Because “trust” does not mean “do nothing,” and because trust is something gained by practice, keep doing your daily life, little by little, looking for moments to test out the practice of trust in a God who cares for you.
Doesn’t your clinched, anxious soul need rest?
A form of spiritual relaxation is found down the road called Active Trust.