Trusting to Listen
By Joy Mounts
November 9, 2003
Hebrews 11: 1
the words of my mouth and the mediations of each heart here be acceptable in your sight, oh, God.
Listening for God in our lives is
something that we have hard time doing. God may be presenting us with answers to prayer and we dismiss it
because we are expecting something else. We forget that God is unexpected,
mysterious, eternal, and intimate. We forget that God may be standing right in
front of us and we do not see God because we are looking up or down or
sideways. We do not always trust ourselves or God enough to listen.
For example, a man heard that his
neighborhood was flooding due to a heavy rain storm. He got down on his knees
and prayed to God: “Dear God, save me from the coming flood!” The waters began
to rise and a truck came by and the driver said, “Get in and I'll drive you to
higher ground.” The man said no, God would save him. The waters continued to
rise. A woman in a boat rowed by. She called, “Jump into the boat and I will
row you to safety.” The man said no, God would save him. The floodwaters
continued to rise. The man was perched on the roof of his house. A helicopter
flew by and let down a rope for the man to grab onto. “I will fly you to
safety,” yelled the pilot. “No.” the man said, “I am waiting for God to save
me.” The man drowned. He got to the heaven
hopping mad. “What are you doing here?” God asked. The man said, “God! I am mad
at you! I asked you to save me from the flood and you did not!” God smiled and
said, “I sent you a truck, a boat and helicopter? How much more saving did you
need?”
Trust is like that. We want to
trust God. We want to agree with the Psalmist to “Trust God all the time.”[i]
We want to say with Isaiah “I will trust God at all times and not be afraid.”[ii]
But we want God to appear and tell us to trust God. It is like parachuting, in theory it sound fine, but to get the
parachute to do what it is designed for, we have to jump out of the plane
first! Our lives are hard to figure
out! So, we make bargains. “God if such and such happens then I will know it is
really You talking or showing me the way and then I will trust You and do what
it is you would have me do. But if I don't see this or hear that, then I will
think it is only what I had for dinner last night and not listen.” I will not trust what my heart is telling me.
I will not trust what my soul is telling me. I will fail to trust God and lose
the opportunities that God is showing me. What I really want God, in order to
trust you is a memo of some kind. An e-mail would be nice or a few lines
floating down from on high to help me out. But God does not send e-mails!
Frederick Buechner tells of a time
when he was terribly depressed. He parked by the roadside to pray, a car
appeared and passed him. The license plate said TRUST. He says, “What do you call a moment like
that? Something to laugh off like the kind of joke life plays on us every once
in a while? The Word of God? I am willing to believe it is something of both
but for me it was an epiphany.”[iii]
The owner of the car turned out to work for a bank as a trust officer. After he
read an account of the story he sent Buechner his own license plate. It sits on
his shelf, and as he says “it is a little rusty around the edges but as holy a
relic as I have seen.”[iv] Trust alone is not always easy. We all want
that sign. We all want our own license plate. After all to trust God is to
throw caution to the wind. To leave ourselves open, to be vulnerable.
Trust can be defined as a confident
expectation. Isn't the point that as believers we have a confident expectation
that God is inter-tangled in our lives? That God is watching out for us, with
us? We can look to a loving God who wants only the best for us, even when we
sometimes do not understand what the best is? Even if it is painful? Trusting God is not always taking the road
we think we should. Sometimes, trusting God means doing what is unknown and all
the risks that entails. Abraham and
Sarah stared in astonishment when told they would be the parents of a great
nation. They knew they were too old. Sarah laughed at this cosmic joke! But the
promise was fulfilled despite their uncertainties because they put their trust
in the Messenger. Moses was told to go back to Egypt and lead the people of
Israel out of slavery. He was to demand Pharaoh release them! Demand to a
Pharaoh? He sputtered and muttered and challenged the burning bush to give him
the plan, in full. God simply said “I am who I am! Now go!” Moses listened with doubts of all kinds and
finally trusted God would be present with him as promised. Trusting does not
mean you do not have doubts. Indeed it may be that doubts are what propel us to
trust. The disciples gave up their
ordinary lives to follow one who they knew was the Messiah. They were not
turned overnight into angels but remained men and women who questioned, bargained
and wanted to know – “where are we going? What's in this for me? Can't you let
us in on the plan Jesus?” Jesus said: “Follow me and I will make you fish for
people.”[v]
In other words trust me, let's go, we have work to do! They went.
Even Jesus seeing that the stakes
had been raised to the point of certain death hesitated. His eleventh hour prayer
in the Garden of Gethsemane is a man trying to grapple with all that is before
him. How many times have we prayed similar prayers! Yet Jesus also trusted God
that would see him through, his reply to his own question. “Not what I want but what you want.”[vi]
After an internal struggle, Jesus
trusted God, who, he knew, would not abandon him. A God whose plan to be
completed required a great deal of trust on Jesus side. Jesus could have said “you know God; I am
not too sure about this, look where it has gotten me. I mean, I am doing the
work you asked me to do, but the stakes have suddenly gotten higher than I
bargained for. I know you said you would stick with me, no matter what, but I
think all this is leading to my death, in fact, I am sure of it. Death! So if
it is all the same to you, I think the boys and I will head back to Nazareth
where I have a nice little carpentry business and we'll call it a day?” Of
course, Jesus did not say that. Jesus, with the sweat and blood on his brow,
listened, trusted that despite the way it looked, this was his part in the
plan. Jesus surrendered his will to
God's. He gave his life to fulfill
God's love for us.
In order to truly trust God, we
must be open to what God lays in front of us. We must accept that we do not
have all the answers. We must accept that maybe God knows a thing or two more
than us. This is hard. After all our culture tells us that we have all the
tools we need to make all the decisions we can ever need. Can't I yahoo or
google God and come up with the same answers? Unfortunately not.
Max Lucado says “To know God's will
we must totally surrender to God's will. Our tendency is to make God's decision
for him. Don't go to God with options and expect him to choose one of your
preferences. Go to him with empty hands – no hidden agendas, no crossed
fingers, nothing behind your back. Go to him with a willingness to do whatever
he says. If you surrender your will, then he will ‘equip you with everything
good for doing his will.'”[vii]
This is not what our intuitions tell us to do. Surrender does not come easily.
I have lived this and so have you. We all have our Gethsemane moments.
For years I had felt God calling me
to another life. But I was busy with a career I loved. Then through the
workings of the corporate world, I found myself in a position to fulfill this
dream. I came to Drew. Yet I was tentative, shying away from the reason my
heart was telling me I was there. I was a teacher not a minister! But….in the
back of my mind, a voice I was shaking away kept calling me. “Why aren't you
fully listening?” I replied “I am here aren't I?” “Yes,” the voice replied “you
are but are you there for the reason I want you to be?” “Leave me alone,” I
said, “I have papers to write and tests to study for – do you have any idea how
long it has been since I took a test?” “I
think I might have a general idea,” the voice replied. “What are you afraid of my child?” “Me
afraid?” I said quaking. “I am starting a whole new chapter of my life. Of
course I am scared. But I am not scared of being a minister; it's just that I
think I am supposed to be a professor!” “Trust me,” the voice said; “the plans
you have made are not what I want you to be.” And so it went for a whole year.
I refused to lean into the trust of God and throw caution to the wind and
accept that I really should be a minister. My friends and family and advisors,
patiently listening to me arguing with God and let me argue.
Until finally, I broke. I felt the
storm welling up inside of me and I knew that the voice had been right all
along. I had not wanted to trust God and come to Drew as a minister. Frankly it
scared me. Where would God lead me? Where would I go? I like to know these
things. I like to kid myself into thinking I am in charge. However, in order to
fulfill what God has for me – I have to trust God. So one day at 3:00 o'clock in the morning, I called out: “God,
you win!” And God said, “No you do.” I
changed my degree program this summer and with Augustine I can say “My heart
was restless until it was at rest in thee.”[viii]
Isn't that one of the biggest
elements of trust – listening to God? Trust is listening. Listening for God in your life. Listening as
God speaks however softly or loudly that may be. And not just hearing that God
is speaking but really listening. It may be surprising whose mouth the words of
God come from and in what experience. Frederick Buechner wrote “The question is
not whether the things that happen to you are chance things or God things
because of course they are both at once. There is no chance thing, which God cannot speak through. He speaks, I
believe, and the words he speaks are incarnate in the flesh and blood of our
selves and our own footsore and sacred journeys. We cannot live our lives
constantly looking back; listening back, lest we be turned into pillars of
longing and regret but to live without listening at all is to live deaf to the
fullness of the music. ” [ix]
In order to be open we have to get
out of own way to hear what God is saying in the small crossroads in our lives
as well as the big junctures. This is not easy. We need to step outside of
ourselves to be open to the possibilities. We need to step outside of the obstacles we set before ourselves and
trust. Listening is part of the
creative process of living. Madeleine L'Engle wrote “When the work takes over,
then the artist is enabled to get out of the way, not to interfere. When the
work takes over, then the artist listens. Before he can listen, paradoxically
he must work. Getting out of the way and listening is not something that comes
easily, either in art or in prayer.”[x]
We want to be the ones making all the decisions. We forget somehow that
trusting God is all about letting go.
“Let Go and Let God.”[xi]
How easy to say that to others, how hard to hear it ourselves. In trusting God we need to learn to trust
ourselves to trust God. To really let
go is to open the door for God to be there with us, around us. We are
stubborn. And this stubbornness becomes
a wall of not trusting. The wall become thick as our refusal to trust
solidifies. Not trusting can turn into fear. And fear makes us smaller. Fear
robs us of the joy of living life to its fullest. Trust restores. Trust lifts us up. “I will trust and will
not be afraid for the Lord God is my strength and my song”[xii]
Isaiah shouted. “I can do all things
through God who gives me strength”[xiii]
Philippians 4 verse 13 is what got me through cancer six years ago. But I can only do all things through God if I
trust that God will get me through all things. If I rely only on my own strength I will falter and be weary. As Julian
of Norwich proclaimed Jesus “wants us to trust that he is constantly with us,
in heaven.., in earth…, …..And in our soul.”[xiv]
If I do not then I will never make it off the shore into the waters of life. How
often have I said okay God, watch me I am diving in where you leading me only
to realize that my while my hands are in the water, my feet are firmly planted
back on the shore of my will. How much
of life will pass me by if I do so? How much of life am I willing to let pass
me by?
There is a sign that my sister
Julie gave me that used to hang in my office and now hangs in my apartment. She
gave it to me after a particularly hard time in my life. It says “Joy, Trust
Me. I have everything under control. Jesus.” I put it where I pass it every day. It is my reminder to be open and
listen and not get in my own way. To listen for that still small voice and
trust God's will for my life. I am
still learning not to fight but to trust. I think that in this I am part of a large crowd! We all have trouble
really trusting. Really letting go and jumping into the ever-lasting arms! We
are all still learning to lean into God's love and trust what God has planned.
But we are also learning how much God loves each one of us. It is this love
that let's us shout with Isaiah that God has given us strength and we will sing
God's praises for the wondrous things God has done! It is this love that God
has for us that helps us to slowly learn to lean into God's trust, love, and
hope for us all. Learning to totally trust God and be vulnerable may be a
lifetime of learning for each and every one of us. But it is as we strive to do so that we may be able to say with conviction
– let go and let God. Amen.
[i] Psalm 62 , v
8
[ii] Isaiah 12, v 2
[iii] Buechner,
Fredrich, Telling Secrets, Harper San Francisco, 1991
[iv] Buechner,
Fredrich, Telling Secrets, Harper San Francisco, 1991
[v] Mark, 1 v.
17
[vi] Mark, 14, v
36
[vii] Lucado,
Max, Traveling Light, Word Publishing, 2001
[viii] St.
Augustine, Confessions
[ix] Buechner,
Fredrich, The Sacred Journey, Harper and Row, 1982
[x] L'Engle,
Madeleine. Walking on Water, from Madeleine L'Engle, Herself, Reflections on a
Writing Life, Shaw Books, 2001
[xi] AA
[xii] Isaiah 12
v 2
[xiii]
Philippians 4, v 13
[xiv] Julian of
Norwich , Showings
© 2003
Joy Mounts.
All rights reserved
