After a 2 year hiatus from blogging, I figured it was about time to put my fingers to the keys and let the creativity flow again. Hopefully this will also be a good exercise to get my brain working intelligently again in English. My German is improving everyday, and my Denglish is pretty great too, but somehow my English has taken a back seat and I can't quite seem to get in the vocabulary groove...thus I return with high hopes to increase those English speaking/writing brain cells once more.

Trust. It's a word that is frequently used within in the English language, and it's a word that is central to the survival or destruction of relationships within our human existence. There are cultures that exist where the word "trust" is not in it's foundations, but rather "trickery, deceit and betrayal" take it's place in how to relate. They say this, but they really mean this. They will not keep their promise. They will betray me. Will they harm me, though they say they intend good for me?
But the more I think about it, the more I realize that these questions aren't just asked in this culture built on trickery, but they are questions that almost every human being asks, and though trust is bounced about in the English language like a ping pong ball, it is a most essential need that needs to be met in every form of relationship within a given society. One needs to know that others intend good and not harm, they need to be able to trust this if the relationship (of any form) is to develop; one needs to know that if they release themselves to someone else, that this person will in fact catch them and not let them fall; one needs to know that if they share their heart with someone, that the other person will not take it and crush it.
And haven't we all experienced pain from trusting others who did the very thing we trusted them not to do? And doesn't that often then jade us into thinking that if it happens once, it will happen again and again and again? And so then we stop trusting people so easily, shutting ourselves off to potential relationships because of fear that this person will not be trustworthy. If I can be honest, this has been me in certain areas in my life, and not just with other humans, but also how I've felt towards God, the one in whom is perfect love, the one in whom I should never doubt and always trust because He is always faithful to his promises. He is the only one in whom we can put all our trust and know beyond a shadow of a doubt that his intentions for us are good...but somehow through some of life's most difficult challenges for me, I've found myself looking into a mirror that Jesus holds up and admitting that I've struggled to trust Him, and that I've withheld parts of myself from him, and have been afraid of taking certain risks in life and ministry because of it. And oh what a heart-breaking revelation that is, to hear the voice of Jesus say gently but sternly to you..."You don't trust me."
Sometimes, in my line of work, I look around at all of those workers who have been serving on the field for years and years, who are veterans in their service to jesus and I think that I am alone in this weakened state of trust but after talking openly with others who have been on the same journey as me and who have been journeying a lot longer, that they too struggle with trusting...we have not yet been completely perfected...we do not yet see clearly, and so in our skewed vision is a lack of understanding that leads to lack of trust...and I think maybe Solomon understood this too, for he gave us a Proverb that spoke exactly to this need for trust (that is also bounced around like the bouncy ball above the words in a sing-a-long dvd)...Let's say it together "Trust in the Lord, with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make your paths straight." It's my own understanding, it's my own perception of things and the fear that leads me astray, that leads me into not trusting. So the road that lies ahead of me right now, is learning to and committing to trust Jesus in those sensitive areas of my life that I've kept from him, and in the risks of life and ministry that I have been afraid to take.
"For a day in your courts is better than 10,000 outside. I would rather stand at the threshold of the house of my God then dwell in the tents of the wickedness. For the Lord is a sun and shield; the Lord gives grace and glory. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly. O Lord of Hosts, how BLESSED is the man who TRUSTS in you!~ Psalm 84:11