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| Trust? (John 15:9-17) |
| Written by Pastor Kuder | |
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Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ. As I was reading recently, I came across an interesting story that the author, Tim Hansel, wrote about. In this story he writes this, “One day, while my son Zac and I were out in the country, climbing around in some cliffs, I heard a voice from above me yell, "Hey Dad! Catch me!" I turned around to see Zac joyfully jumping off a rock straight at me. He had jumped and then yelled "Hey Dad!" I became an instant circus act, catching him. We both fell to the ground. For a moment after I caught him I could hardly talk.” “When I found my voice again I gasped in exasperation: "Zac! Can you give me one good reason why you did that???’” “He responded with remarkable calmness: "Sure...because you're my Dad." His whole assurance was based in the fact that his father was trustworthy. He could live life to the hilt because I could be trusted.” When I read this to myself I thought, “What and incredible picture of trust.” Here’s this child, who’s doing something that most if not all of us would look at and think to ourselves, “that’s just plain dumb to be doing. What if his father hadn’t looked up in time? What if his father hadn’t been able to respond quickly enough? What if his father hadn’t been able to stop this boys fall? What if … ?” The thing is though … that in this child’s mind … there were no “what ifs?” All he knew was that his father loved him and had always taken care of him and protected him. And as far as he was concerned, his father wasn’t going to stop taking care of him and protecting him … even if jumping off the side of this cliff didn’t make any sense. It’s always amazing the amount of trust that we have when we are young. We think that our parents can do just about anything. We think that the world is completely safe. And we tend to think that we can trust just about anyone. But that level of trust seems to change as we get older and we tend to trust people only up to a certain level. Haddon Robinson wrote about one such experience. “Years ago, Monroe Parker was traveling through South Alabama on one of those hot, sultry Alabama days. He stopped at a watermelon stand, picked out a watermelon, and asked the proprietor how much it cost. "It's $1.10," he replied. Parker dug into his pocket, found only a bill and said, "All I have is a dollar." "That's ok," the proprietor said, "I'll trust you for it." "Well, that's mighty nice of you," Parker responded, and picking up the watermelon, started to leave. "Hey, where are you going?" the man behind the counter demanded. "I'm going outside to eat my watermelon." "But you forgot to give me the dollar!" "You said you would trust me for it," Parker called back. "Yeah, but I meant I would trust you for the dime!" "Mack," Parker replied, "You weren't going to trust me at all. You were just going to take a ten-cent gamble on my integrity!" A ten-cent gamble. That’s as far as this watermelon stand owner was willing to trust this person. In fact, it would seem that he was only willing to take a chance on this fellow as long as he wasn’t going to have to risk taking a loss. That stand owner, wanted to make sure that he was going to be safe in his self proclaimed trust. >>>short pause<<< When I was living in St. Louis, the family of one of my buddies out there had become foster parents for Irish Setters. One of these Irish Setters that they had taken in apparently had been abused by its former owners. As time went on, they found out that this poor dog was afraid of all men. It was terrified of walking on anything that wasn’t carpeted. And if anything ever even remotely frightened it, this dog would run in terror and hide in it crate. Life had taught this poor dog some fairly harsh lessons. It didn’t matter that my buddies family only showed this dog love … all it knew to do to survive, was to live this way. Well to make a long story short my buddies family ended up adopting this dog and it did eventually learn that they did really love him. However, life sometimes teaches us some fairly harsh lessons as well. And quite often … well, we translate those lessons to those around us as well, regardless of whether they have ever done anything to us or not. And it seems that at times, many of us end up trying to apply those lessons to God as well. We claim that we trust Him fully … but when the pressure is on, when things don’t really make sense, we end up only being willing to take a ten-cent gamble on Him. We only trust so far…so far as we don’t have to take a loss. On top of all of this … we behave this way when all He has shown us is love. In a sense, we end up behaving much like the disciples in the John’s Gospel. In fact, the comfort that we see Jesus displaying to the disciples in today’s Gospel reading He started showing them more than a chapter prior to this. They had been with Him for some time. They had seen Him do all sorts of miracles. And Jesus was right in front of them. And the disciples just couldn’t get it. And we do the exact same things. When God calls us to do something, if it doesn’t make sense, our trust only goes so far. But the thing is though … that Christ’s trust and His love, goes all the way to the cross … and then to the grave … and beyond. His forgiveness is something that is in no shape or form a gamble … and neither are His promises to us. We know that when we jump He will catch us. Maybe not necessarily in the manner that we would like or for that manner even in a way that we would think of. But He has promised to take care of us, no matter what. And love is all He has ever shown us. Back in 1991, James Brown, from Evangeline Baptist Church told this story. “There is no situation I can get into that God cannot get me out. Some years ago when I was learning to fly, my instructor told me to put the plane into a steep and extended dive. I was totally unprepared for what was about to happen. After a brief time the engine stalled, and the plane began to plunge out-of-control. It soon became evident that the instructor was not going to help me at all. After a few seconds, which seemed like eternity, my mind began to function again. I quickly corrected the situation.” “Immediately I turned to the instructor and began to vent my fearful frustrations on him. He very calmly said to me, "There is no position you can get this airplane into that I cannot get you out of. If you want to learn to fly, go up there and do it again." At that moment God seemed to be saying to me, "Remember this. As you serve Me, there is no situation you can get yourself into that I cannot get you out of. If you trust me, you will be all right." That lesson has been proven true in my ministry many times over the years.” And this is our God. Our God who shows us nothing but love. Our God who for us is never a gamble, because we know that He will always take care of us. And He is also our God into who’s arms we land when we fall. -Amen |