Friday, November 6, 2009

Trusting Because We Are Treasured

For obvious reasons, I have been thinking a lot these days about trusting God. Last weekend, as I was preparing for a trip to Pittsburg, I found myself marveling that I sometimes invest more trust in the pilot and crew of an airplane than I do in Papa God! If you stop and think about this, you will realize how ironic it is that we invest total trust into the hands of many, fallible human beings every time we fly. In a sense, we surrender to their expertise and good intentions (and healthy self-interest on the part of the pilot and first officer--they strongly desire a safe flight for personal reasons!).

Now before I go any further, I need to say that yes, my ultimate trust when I fly is in God, not those who fly the plane, maintain the plane, etc., but bear with my illustration for a moment longer, okay? You see, when I first started flying I did not like it at all, and the reason I didn't was that I wasn't in control of my journey (as if I ever really were!). Rather I was trusting my safety entirely into the hands of another. Yet even in my initial fears of flying I never once tried to break into the cockpit and fly the plane. Why? Because even in my fear of trusting myself to another, I knew that I lacked the expertise and experience to fly the plane.

So...if I apply this metaphor to my relationship with Papa, what do I find? I find that in the case of my life, I am invited to surrender to the One who not only has total "expertise" and "experience" (knowing everything counts here, I think), but also to the One who is pure love and goodness. How odd, then, for me to find myself balking at surrender to the One who is love and who can be totally trusted while at the same time gladly getting on airplanes all the time!

So what's the problem here? For me, it often boils down to the fact that something has obscured God's goodness--His treasuring me. If I remember and truly understand that the most powerful being in the Universe also treasures me beyond comprehension, trusting Him becomes easier. And isn't this where the enemy attacks most? From the first temptation until now, his tactic has always been to get us to doubt God's goodness, love and good intentions for us. And if he succeeds in this, we choose independence that leads not only to painful and destructive choices but also to constant fear (sometimes manifesting itself only as a lack of peace, sometimes manifesting itself in overpowering anxiety).

We trust because we are treasured, dear ones, and the more deeply we allow God's Spirit to place His love for us within our deepest parts, the more likely it becomes that trusting surrender becomes our first response to whatever comes our way. (Not than any of us perfects this in this current life--that much I have learned for sure of late!)

A few months ago, as I was reading Danny Silk's book, Loving Our Kids On Purpose, I wrote the following thoughts about trusting surrender based on knowing we are treasured. I close this week's blog with these thoughts.

(June 6, 2009) One new insight from my reading that I need to record is a new view of surrender. Instead of it being surrender to a despot or master who wishes to control me, it is a surrender to the wisdom of the One who loves me most. I have seen this before, of course, and you have told me that when I surrender it is surrender to your goodness, but I saw it more clearly than ever last night as I read. Or perhaps what I saw is how it changes how we view our relationship with you. In your leading us your are not coming to control us but to empower us to live as “partners” and as part of your family—your representatives (as your children) on earth. And your guidance comes to us from One who treasures us beyond comprehension and who desires for us to learn to think and choose, etc.

I am still pondering all this, Pai, as you know, but even as I write I realize that what I am describing is how you have me treat others! Wouldn’t you do this as well, only infinitely more so? And obedience, which is a NT concept that we cannot avoid, is not compliance but surrender to your wisdom in a way that "treasures your heart" to use Danny’s term. And I see from a search on goodness that I was writing about this on March 3, 2008. What is new, I think, is how I am seeing your view of our relationship more clearly in terms of treasuring and esteeming us, valuing our thoughts, etc.

Papa, this is huge, I know, and is a quantum leap away from the master/slave view of Calvinism and most western theology and “Christianity,” but it is clearly a wiser and better picture not only of our life with you but of you as God! And it clearly fits with Exodus 33:19 and so much more! I am undone. The thought of you valuing my thoughts and opinions and inviting me to participate with you—wow!

Papa, this is why it is so important to see you as treasuring us, isn’t it! If we don’t see that, then we cannot have the mature type of relationship with you that you created us for! And yet, even in your treasuring us and choosing to invite rather than coerce, your infinite wisdom is available to us, and only a fool would not want to receive it. And when we treasure you in response to your treasuring love for us, we desire only your honor. Wow!

Enough for this week. Perhaps the next time you get on an airplane you will, as I did, hear Papa's invitation to trust Him because He treasures you!

Tom, one of Abba's children

1 comment:

the wonder that's keeping the stars apart said...

I love the concept of being able to treasure God's heart through being obedient to him. What a privilege.