trust is a must

[ When the brilliant ethicist John Kavanaugh went to work for 3 months at the house of the dying in Calcutta, he was seeking a clear answer as to how to best spend the rest of his life. On the first morning there he met Mother Teresa. She asked, "What can I do for you?" Kavanaugh asked her to pray for him. "What do you want me to pray for?" she asked. He voiced the request that he had borne thousands of miles from the Unites States:

"Pray that I have clarity."

She said firmly, "No, I will not do that." When he asked her why, she said, "Clarity is the last thing you are clinging to and must let go of."

When Kavanaugh commented that she always seemed to have the clarity he longed for, she laughed and said,

"I have never had clarity; what I have always had is trust. So I will pray that you trust God." ]

This small story might have just changed my life entirely. My view of faith. My opinions of what it means to live a life devoted to my God.

Western Christianity is steadily angering me. Call me judgmental, I'm working on that, but to me it seems like we tell ourselves (and teach others) such a selfish, superficial way of following Jesus. This is what I'm realizing, which happens to go against most of what I've been taught my whole life. We don't love people like we love & take care of ourselves, which is a clear command throughout the entire Bible. We typically don't make the poor a priority; we just keep amassing and creating excess in our lives. We spend lots of time, energy, and money trying to avoid conflict, pain, risk and inconvenience. And we sit around waiting for God to tell us what to do, like that's the example we have been given by the early Christians.

Where do we get this stuff?

Ruthless Trust by Brennan Manning is continuing to tear down my misconceptions and revive my spirit. I am convicted and motivated to live my life in greater abandonment-- not worrying, planning, or saving up for tomorrow, but giving, loving, and living in today. He is greater. He is with me. And He will take care of me, like the loving parent He is.

I hope the following words also move you closer to Him who is most trustworthy, all loving, and all good. May we each day accept His unchanging love for us & grow to know His heart, and in return, give His grace to a graceless world.

Fear of the unknown path stretching ahead of us destroys childlike trust in the Father's active goodness and unrestricted love.

The basic premise of biblical faith is the conviction that God wants us to grow, to unfold, and to experience fullness of life. However, that kind of trust is acquired only gradually and most often through a series of crises and trials.

The way of trust is a movement into obscurity, into the undefined, into ambiguity, not into some predetermined, clearly delineated plan for the future.

The next step discloses itself only out of a discernment of God acting in the desert of the present moment.

With a strong affirmation of our goodness and a gentle understanding of our weakness, God is loving us-- you and me-- this moment, just as we are and not as we should be.

"To be grateful for the good things that happen in our lives is easy, but to be grateful for all of our lives-- the good as well as the bad, the moments of joy as well as the moments of sorrow, the successes as well as the failures, the rewards as well as the rejections-- that requires hard spiritual work... Let's not be afraid to look at everything that has brought us to where we are now and trust that we will soon see it in the guiding hand of a loving God."

To be grateful for an unanswered prayer, to give thanks in a state of interior desolation, to trust in the love of God in the face of the marvels, the cruel circumstances, obscenities, and commonplaces of life is to whisper a doxology in darkness.

Anyone God uses significantly is always deeply wounded... On the last day, Jesus will look us over not for medals, diplomas, or honors, but for scars.

Trust means the willingness to become absolutely empty of all terrifying and comforting images of God that we have held, so that the gift of God in Jesus Christ may come to us on God's terms.