Letting Go to Trust

April 1, 2009

2 Peter 2:4-10a

They give the way of truth a bad name. They’re only out for themselves. They’ll say anything, ANYTHING, that sounds good to exploit you. They won’t, of course, get by with it. They’ll come to a bad end, for God has never just stood by and let that kind of thing go on. God didn’t let the rebel angels off the hook, but jailed them in hell till Judgment Day. Neither did he let the ancient ungodly world off. He wiped it out with a flood, rescuing only eight people—Noah, the sole voice of righteousness, was one of them. God decreed destruction for the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. A mound of ashes was all that was left—grim warning to anyone bent on an ungodly life. But that good man Lot, driven nearly out of his mind by the sexual filth and perversity, was rescued. Surrounded by moral rot day after day, that righteous man was in constant torment. So God knows how to rescue the godly from evil trials. And he knows how to hold the feet of the wicked to the fire until Judgment Day.

Like most of you, I was blessed to grow up in a Christian home, to have parents that had/have spiritual relationships with God and to have been taught by my parents and Sunday School teachers, etc. about what it means to have a relationship with God. I’ve spent years having words like trust, faith and obedience swirl about me. I made my confession of faith at an early age and spent most of my . . . okay, all of my last 29 years as a Christian believing that I trusted God. Yet, I would look at my life and see one that seemed to be harder for me than most other people. Was I suffering more? Was I wired in some way to make like more difficult than it need be? What was the deal? I felt like life with God was a wrestling match. Since the beginning of this year, God has been “chasing me down with faith.” In fact, up until last week, the words have been, “Trust me, Blythe, and be.” I kept thinking in these last months, “God, that is what I’m doing! Could you just stop being a broken record?!” I can only imagine what God must have been thinking in response!

Then on Thursday of last week, I got out of the bed, turned on the light and began to speak the following words out loud, “Okay, God let’s lay it all on the table. I don’t trust you and I never have. I’ve always wanted to trust you. I’ve spent 37 years trying to figure out how. I am willing and you have to know that! But, I don’t get it! If you would just give me some sort of step method, then I’ll be all over it but apparently step methods are not your style! So even though, I have every amount of evidence to the contrary—a home, a car that gets me where I need to go, food to eat, animals for companionship—every possible message to indicate your sure provisions for me—I still don’t trust you. So I’m telling you today that if you want me to trust you, you are going to have to make it happen within me because I’m done trying to figure it out.”

What strikes me about this passage is that Peter is trying to communicate that as human beings we are presented with a choice—the choice to make our own decisions or the choice to trust that God knows better than we do and to look to God for instruction. He wants the people to understand that God is involved in our lives and will be to the degree that we will allow him. He wants the people to understand that even if they fail to discern the wily ways of the false teachers, that God will have the last say. He uses examples from the Hebrew Bible of the “watchers”—those angels that had sexual relations with human women in Genesis 6:1-4 and were then sentenced to the lowest place of Hades. He references Noah and Lot for whom God had a better way than the corruption that surrounded them and honored them in their righteousness. Noah and Lot and others like them throughout history learned to let go of their way, surrender to God and in so doing they found a new freedom and blessing.

In those early morning hours of last Thursday, for the first time in my life, I felt what I’d like to think was a similar freedom and blessing—a peace and a newfound sense of wholeness. Will it last? That remains to be seen—I am human and hold a strong proclivity toward claiming my own way. But at least for a few days, I have gotten the experience of joining many of you, my teachers, in experiencing the freedom that exists in letting go and trusting God.

It is a sensation that I wish for all of us and while of course it irks me that it took me this long to experience, I can only be grateful that I have learned a new lesson and prayerful that I will stick to it. I know not where you stand in your journey to trust and surrender but I hope for many such mountaintop experiences for you! Amen.