ps. 56 reflection…
When I am afraid, I will trust in you.
In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I will not be afraid. What can mortal man do to me?
v. 3,4
fear and trust are interesting animals aren’t they?
most of us naturally know fear, it’s common to the human condition. we all fear different things, but it’s rare to run into someone who is genuinely fearless. some brave or confident people mask their fears with a tough facade, but underneath the same fears reside, they’re just packaged a little differently.
trust it seems to my simple mind, once most of us make it out of childhood, is a much scarier thing, a much more unnatural thing for us. i mean we certainly all trust, and must trust certain realities in our world to survive, but there are areas where we can find it quite difficult. not too many of us are really willing or over-eager to entrust our fragile concepts of ourselves to thsoe around us. we fear peoples opinions of us, we want to be liked or appreciated or respected (at least by those we like, appreciate, and respect). Very few of us like to be out there vulnerable and opened up to the unknown.
and trusting God is a hard thing too. for those that call themselves Christ followers sometimes we act like it’s easy or should be easy, but in reality it’s not. we’re most comfortable when we’re calling the shots, when we’re in control, when we’re our own boss. and that makes sense because that is the way the world is oriented and has trained us to be. for us the challenge is learning. learning to entrust ourselves to one greater and much more capable than ourselves. logically it makes perfect easy sense. in living that out however our real beliefs are challenged and our fears and insecurities revealed.
may God be our help as we learn to trust in him despite all our fears and inclinations and training to the contrary