Wednesday, May 01, 2024

Catch Me


You’re standing on the edge of a tree house, looking down at your dad, ready to launch off the edge. If you jump, you trust that he will catch you. That trust is knowing that your dad will act in your best interest, despite your feelings and your fear.

Trust isn't not caring. If you don’t care whether or not you break a leg, it’s easy to jump. But that also means that you don’t care if your dad catches you—and that’s not trust. Trust is not a YOLO, don't care attitude. Often, in trying not to care, not to face our fears, we rob ourselves of opportunities to trust God. Trust is knowing that we are loved and that God has the power to act in that love. 

Why do you trust your dad to catch you if you jump? Because you know that he doesn’t want to see you hurt. He wants to catch you—because he loves you. As people, we are all flawed and we will make mistakes no matter how good our intentions are. God is different. Mistakes are not a possibility for Him and love is not an option for him:

He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Romans 8:32)

For your dad waiting below the tree, it's more than just the desire to catch you, he needs to be able to catch you. This is where people too often fall short, because, despite best interests and desires, we don’t always have the power to act in that love. God does. Not only does he love you unconditionally, but he has the absolute ability to follow through on that love. 

"You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations. In your hand are power and might, so that none is able to withstand you.” (2 Chronicles 20:6)

So God loves us and has the power to act in that love— then why does he let us get hurt? I.e. why is there evil in this world?

There are many reasons, but those reasons often sound flat when compared to the suffering someone is going through. That's when we are presented with a choice. Do we choose to believe that God is acting in our best interests, even when everything we see and feel is telling us otherwise? Just because we are feeling something, doesn't necessarily mean it is true.

I could never pretend to understand God and all His ways, but I do think that sometimes God lets us fall and break that leg or fail that test so that we can realise that, yeah actually we did care about that thing. And once we understand what we consider important, we can turn to him and truly trust him with whatever those things are. As 1 Peter 5:7 says, “Cast all your care on him, because he cares about you.” He wants us to trust him with the things that are important to us. Trust is knowing that God has a purpose for the pain, even when it doesn't make sense.

When we make that choice to trust God, we are given an assurance, a promise of God that can never be broken:
Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose trust is the Lord. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.” (Jeremiah 17:7-8)

We’re not told that the heat will avoid us, or that drought will pass over us. We’re told that we will remain green in the midst of the drought. We will be green because we have the source of living water in us (John 4:14), Jesus Christ our Lord.

And in that, we can trust.

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