T is for Trust

When I was growing up, I always equated trust with the belief that everything would be OK. But when my dad died while I was a teenager, my definition of trust got turned upside down. Nothing felt OK. It didn’t seem like anything would ever be OK again.

But as God has patiently worked in my life, I am beginning to see that trust isn’t simply believing everything will be OK. It’s knowing that it will be OK—someday. It’s the someday that can be so hard to wait for. There are times Jesus heals and restores a person physically. There are times He does not and they are not made whole again until they have died here on earth and are alive with Him forever.

It’s a theme shared often in the Bible. When Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were thrown into the fiery furnace for refusing to worship an idol, God came down and rescued them. They left the fire unharmed. When John the Baptist was put in prison for daring to tell the king that he was living sinfully, he was beheaded.

And look at Jesus’ prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane before His crucifixion. He pleaded with God that if there was any other way, to please rescue Him and not make Him face this indescribably horrible death and the separation from God His Father that He knew would come with it. But there was no other way. And for a time, nothing in the entire universe was OK. Darkness fell. Rocks split. An earthquake shook the ground.

But then, after the longest, darkest three days His friends had ever endured, Jesus returned. He was alive and He had started the process of making everything right again. Is everything suddenly OK? No, but it will be. Someday.

And during the in between time? We wait. We pray. Sometimes we cry. Jesus did. God’s people do. This encouraging video from a pastor who was kidnapped and tortured reminds me of that each time I watch it. He felt fear, pain, anguish. He felt alone. God’s people are not superhuman, but by His grace and strength, and with the promise of His forgiveness when we fall short and doubt, we can trust and believe that it will be OK again. Someday.