Trust

Two years ago when I was teaching a research methods course to undergraduates at Lithuania International University, a Christian college located in the town of Klaipeda on the Baltic Sea, I gave several speeches at the request of the chaplain. As a result, one of my students felt emboldened to approach me after class with the question, "Do you think we can really trust God?"

When I answered in the affirmative, she indicated some hesitation to take my word for it although my chapel presentation had given her some courage in this respect. So, last January, when I returned to do an intensive seminar on the same topic and the chaplain approached me again for a speaking engagement, I knew the topic I had to address: trust.

Among other things I presented to the students, I told the story of a lost credit card on a trip to Washington. I called the bank, wanting to cancel it, but colleagues, one from Jordan and one from Morocco, both, ironically, Muslims, talked me out of it. "Allah always takes care of you," they pointed out, confidently predicting that my credit card would be found in my hotel room. It was. For some odd reason, I had forgotten that I had used it on the plane as a bookmark. The title of the book? Ruthless Trust: The Ragamuffin's Path to God (Brendan Manning). I think God might have been sending me a message with that experience!

We all need that lesson from time to time, no matter how great our faith and trust. We need the lesson so that we will not try to take problems back once we give them to God. Why give them to God if we are going to continue to worry about them and not trust God to handle them in ways that only He can -- so much better than we ever can, no matter the amount of worry.

As I told the college kids in the chapel that day, when we lack trust, we can always ask God to help us trust Him more (along the lines of praying for help with unbelief). I believe that God delights in answering such prayers for He seems to answer them, at least for me, with great alacrity.