Trust

It's been a strange old month.

We will never grow in faith unless we go through times where our faith is tested. It's easy to say you trust God when everything is coming up roses. It's another thing entirely to say it when the future seems uncertain.

What does it mean to trust God when things are down?

The thing about trust is that it isn't always a good thing. The worst of life's emotional anguish comes from broken trust or trust that was misplaced. Trust is only a good thing if it is placed in something worthy of trust. No matter how much we trust - how much faith we have- unless that faith is in something with a firm basis in truth, it is useless.

If you are falling from a cliff, and have faith in a branch to hold your weight - it's not the strength of your faith that determines whether you fall to the ground, it's the strength of the branch.

I can tell myself that my wife and I will get the jobs we want - I can even believe it as I say it. I can squeeze my eyes tight shut and believe it so hard I burst a blood vessel. But does that mean it will come true? It isn't the strength or unshakability of your trust that matters, it is the truth or otherwise of what you are trusting in.

As Christians, should we 'just believe' that everything will be fine - it will all work out as we want? Of course not. Things are manifestly not all fine. Life clearly doesn't go (at least not consistently) just as we would like.

And it is in precisely these difficult times that trust becomes important. The most wonderful statements of faith in God come at the close of the most melancholy Psalms. Trust clearly isn't some crazed assertion that everything is ok. To say that is to deny the nature of the world in which we live. And the nature of the world Jesus lived, suffered and died in.

So what does it mean to trust God?

That depends, again, on the truth behind your trust. Are we trusting God for who he has actually said and shown he is, or are we trusting in a God of our own making (idolatry)?

Do I believe God is never angry? No, I believe he is slow to get angry.

Do I believe God gives us everything we could ever want? No I believe God works all things together for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purposes.

Do I believe that nothing could ever harm me? No I believe that nothing can separate me from the love of God.

Do I believe that God's will is the same as mine? No I believe God's thoughts are higher than mine.

Our trust can't be in some particular desired outcome from a situation. That is faith in something which is not based in fact. I hope for that, I pray for that.  I might even go so far as to say I pray to a God whose revealed character of love and generosity makes it LIKELY that he will answer those prayers. But I cannot say I can trust in that outcome. Because God sometimes has other plans. 

Daniel's three friends (for lovers of mid 90s talking vegetable bible cartoons, we can call them Shack, Rack and Benny...) are an incredible example of this kind of trust. They said 'our God is able to save us from the fire... but even if he doesn't...'

Their trust was in God, regardless of the immediate outcome. Their devotion to, faith in, trust in God was not conditional on God complying with their will.

The challenge is to trust him regardless of whether his will is our will.

So what does it mean to trust God in uncertainty - when we can't say that what we want to happen is what will happen?

Well, if we trust God, we trust in what he HAS promised us. I trust he will provide for me. Because he told me so. I trust he has a plan for me. Because he told me so. I trust he is working all of these things together for my ultimate good, because he told me so. I trust that at the end of all of this, when as the hymn writer said 'earth's joys grow dim, it's glories pass away', I will see him face to face, and every tear, pain, worry and burden will finally be gone. Because he told me so.

I trust that no matter what happens, and no matter how bad - or good - things get, he will never leave me or forsake me. And if we really grasp the glory of who Jesus is - the pearl of great price - then that has to be enough for us.

As a side note, I've talked about how faith (trust) is powerless unless it is faith placed in something which is objectively reliable. I hear the secular materialist say 'see, you admit it - blind faith is useless'. Yes, of course I agree with that.

But this branch I am hanging on - my faith in Jesus - is rooted in objectively rational fact. There are good reasons to trust this branch to hold my weight. The trustworthiness of the branch is also confirmed by subjective experience. In other words, my faith is not blind - it is faith in a person who I know, who I have experienced, and who is as real to me as the woman I married.

When we decide to trust God we do it on his terms. And his terms are that he is God, and we are not. He might not do as we thought / wished he would. But we can know that in all things, he is unequivocally and eternally FOR us. He loves us. And he asks for our trust.

I trust. I don't know how it's going to work out, I don't know where it's going to take us. I don't know what's around the corner.

But I know Jesus.

And that's enough.

Four Deaths. And Life.

I don't think death is ever a cause for celebration. Certainly not in and of itself. I was saddened that when Osama Bin Laden was killed celebrations broke out, not at the idea of a victory over a legitimate foe, or the idea of freedom from a certain danger being achieved, but simply at the death of a man. I was quite simply repulsed today by the thought that some people in this nation - even this city - would consider celebrating the death of Baroness Thatcher. What an example of the failure of human dignity, the failure of mankind to live up to even the basic standards of decency once more. An old lady, suffering from Dementia, has died, leaving behind a grieving family. She also happens to be the first (and thus far only) woman to have held the highest political office in the country. This frail old lady still arouses such passions, that one otherwise gentle and jovial old man who sat next to me on a plane once told me 'I'd dance on her grave'. Grace? Forgiveness? Not for her. Such is the attitude of many tonight, sadly.

That gets me thinking about another death we've been remembering these past few months, a death that (some might argue) we do celebrate. I refer of course to Jesus. It would be wrong to say we celebrate his death. That was on the Friday. That was a sombre moment and a cataclysmic moment. The celebration came on Sunday, with the resurrection. It is rather important not to confuse them. One lawyer this Easter in a Scottish court was pleading for a light sentence for his client, and said 'after all, M'Lord, it is Easter time'. To which the presiding Sheriff replied 'yes, it is good Friday - are you asking me to impose crucifixion?'

In the Easter story God brought life from death, not unlike the mythical phoenix rising from the ashes of it's former self.

Which is interesting.

Because death come to us all. This is a subject that has, for better or for worse, occupied my mind for the past few days. Not deliberately, but I wonder if subconsciously I have been heeding the advice of the writer of Ecclesiastes, who counsels us that 'a wise person thinks a lot about death'. 

I am currently writing and revising a talk I am to give on Thursday at an Alpha course launch night, and death raises many of those wonderful and horrible questions of life that Alpha is designed to explore. Is death the end? Do my decisions now make a difference to what happens in the end?  Or, as Tolstoy asked in typically poetic language, 'is there any meaning in my life that will not be annihilated by the inevitability of death that awaits me?'

In addition to Alpha and Ecclesiastes there is another thing that has made these issues the focus of my thoughts of late. It was a Christian writer (I won't name names) who was providing some remarkably pleasing answers to horrendously difficult questions. It was enticing. It is that simple after all! That's just what I'd like to believe! Except as I thought it through, and went back to basic truths, I saw that it just isn't that simple. There are big things at stake. Big questions to which we each need to find an answer. And the answer you find matters enormously.

Which leads me to death number four. (Maggie, Jesus, Everyone... Have you been counting?)

Our deaths. (Wait, that was number three wasn't it? Have you lost count?). What I mean is our pre-death deaths. Perhaps it's too late at night for such nonsense. I soldier on regardless.

What I mean by a pre-death death, is a kind of death that, like the Easter story and like the Phoenix, leads to new life. It is a kind of death that leads to new life of such a vibrant degree, and of such an increasing fullness, that the 'official' bodily death becomes just a mere formality to seal the transition. It is the death Jesus asks us to die in order that we can follow him into resurrected life. A death not brought about by violence, disease or age, but a death brought about by the decision to throw yourself  spiritually from a great height.

I have never bungee jumped. I don't have the cajones for such a feat. I consider that my impulse NOT to jump is a prime example of natural instinct at it's most effective. But when it comes to the big questions, the surprising answer (or so I've found, at any rate) is that dying a spiritual death, throwing the whole broken lot of me over the edge, has resulted in a Phoenix-like rebirth, where behind every lost cause there lurks a miracle story, and over every insurmountable object there is written 'hope'. What glorious grace, to fall from a great height only to fall into the arms of the God who was waiting to catch me, and then to give me wings.

Death comes to us all. But then so can life.

Marital Coercion

How disappointed I was to learn from the Vicky Pryce case that marital coercion is not a defence which will be accepted by a modern jury as excusing someone for committing an act they had previously thought unthinkable. Because I never thought I'd write a blog. In fact, for so long I have (gently) railed against the first-order vanity of the blogger, who thinks their thoughts are of such invaluable quality that the whole world should read them.

And here I am writing a blog.

But Roxy made me do it.

Or rather, she said she thought it was a good idea. And making her smile seems to be at least a contributing factor to my motivation for most things in life, since that strange girl made me fall in love with her.

So here it is, for what it's worth. My thoughts, deliberations, ventings and musings (and perhaps even some not-fully-formed sermons) on the things that matter to me. If the same or similar things matter to you (imaginary reader) then perhaps my contributions will be of some mild interest if there really is nothing in the telly.

And if all else fails, please remember - she made me do it.