Pretend to Trust


Dear Eugene,

This is the passage from Jeremiah I've picked to lead yesterday's morning prayer at church:

“But blessed is the man who trusts me, God,
    the woman who sticks with God.
They’re like trees replanted in Eden,
    putting down roots near the rivers—
Never a worry through the hottest of summers,
    never dropping a leaf,
Serene and calm through droughts,
    bearing fresh fruit every season."

Who is this "blessed" one?

First, he or she certainly is a person who is in trouble.

No one needs to "trust" when there's no trouble.  To trust is not "to believe" as in giving an intellectual assent, to merely acknowledge, to hold up my hand for the world to see my attempt.  To trust means, as the second line says, to "stick with" the trusted one despite all the rationales and emotions to distrust.

Now what I've said just now is very good material for a very bad sermon.

You see, my points are clear, and so is the moral of the story: be the trusting one.  Make sure you are on God's nice list.  Be the one who trusts God and--check it out! the blessings you will have for doing just that!  You will have not a thing to worry about!  Now don't you leave this sanctuary and still not be convinced why you should sign yourself up to become a "blessed" one!

Yes, I agree, preacher Alex, but now I will need my lunch.  I am sure I am going to trust God when trust is called for.  Just for showing up at church you can tell my intention is there.  But at this very juncture I need to face what I am facing now, which is the sight of my car being stuck because of someone double parking.  And, again, I am hungry.  It was a long sermon after all.  I need my food, like, now, but this big appliance delivery truck with its lowered tail-lift and no delivery personnel in sight seems to be telling me this still picture of my predicament is going to stay still for an indefinite moment.  Words are starting to come to me, unkind words, fancy adjectives and very active action verbs, words I am going to let out of me like a deluge when I see the lowlife(s) responsible for causing me this unnecessary pain.  Whoever these people are, they don't care crap the chain of inconveniences they're inflicting on me.  Now I will be late for Costco.  The parking will be worse, much worse by then, experience tells me.  This means I won't be getting my nap before making the dish I've promised to bring to tonight's Mother's Day dinner.  Going to such a high stress event without my nap is going to kill me.  I am going to say the wrong things because I'll be too tired to pick the right words, not alert enough to stay sensitive to the finer nuance of human interaction and avoid the landmines, even the obvious ones.  And when that happens if I am to speak about this mishap of an appliance delivery company not observing sabbath, no one in my family is going to understand.  They never do anyway.  Never cared.  But the awkwardness of this particular truth shall put me in a particularly awkward position...

We say we want to trust God, don't we all?

Not a thing to worry about, "like a tree replanted in Eden"--now how does that work?

If I declare right now that I do trust God, would my troubles go away?  Which trouble?  The little ones?  The big ones that I don't see why I could leave behind until I'm six feet under?  The new ones that will certain emerge with the sun by tomorrow morning?  The ugly lies told about me?  The smell of injustice that is the stuff of my recurring nightmare in a room where I was falsely accused?  The grimace on the face of my victorious accuser?  A bloody ongoing battle with some creatures from hell?  Which trouble, do YOU, God, plan to unburden me of by sunset for my trusting you?

Jeremiah continues:

“The heart is hopelessly dark and deceitful,
    a puzzle that no one can figure out.
But I, God, search the heart
    and examine the mind.
I get to the heart of the human.
    I get to the root of things.
I treat them as they really are,
    not as they pretend to be.”

Yours, Alex

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