A Matter of Trust

Yesterday was Good Shepherd Sunday.  We recited the Twenty-Third Psalm from the Hebrew Scripture, and also loved by Christians.  “The Lord is my shepherd.” 

The mystery to me is why we recite, “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not be in want,” and live as if we shall?  Why do we recite, “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil,” and yet we do? 

According to the Twenty-Third Psalm, the freedom we seek, both from living in want and living in fear, comes primarily from trust.  The point of the Twenty-Third Psalm, it seems to me, is about trusting the shepherd, trusting God.  The author of the Psalm is speaking of trust.  Absolute trust.  Our freedom is in absolute trust.  But trust is a very hard thing for us to do. Still, the spiritual life, indeed human life, and not just that of sheep, is really mostly about trust.  Nothing else.  Really just trust. 

If anything ought to change the quality of the way we live, it seems to me, it ought to be that Jesus has risen from the dead and that death itself has been defeated and holds no power over us.  So why do we succumb to the power of death?  To the power of fear?  To the power of darkness?  To the power of separation?  To the power of division?  To the power of want?  It isn’t that we don’t believe.  It is that we have a hard time trusting.  

I don’t know anything at all, really, about sheep.  I don’t know much about animals.  But as many of you know, I have a Labrador Retriever named Annie, whom I love very much and who occasionally comes to the office with me (it’s looking like Thursday this week).  And I do know a little bit about Annie.  And I think I have learned a thing or two about life from Annie.  

Annie, I have noticed, never, ever lives in want.  Why is that?  It is because I feed her.  Unfailingly.  But even when her bowl is empty, Annie does not live in want.  Annie lives in complete confidence that I will feed her and that she will not be hungry.  I don’t think I have ever detected any anxiety whatsoever, not the least little bit, that she might go hungry.  Annie trusts me.  Her defense against living in want is not just that I feed her.  It is that she trusts.  

Whether or not we live in want has nothing to do with what we have.  It has to do with whether we trust.  It is not about what we have.  It is about trust.  One of the things I have noticed, somewhat paradoxically, is that it is those who have the most who often fall into the trap of trusting the least.  It is not a matter of having.  It is a matter of trusting.

Nor is it about what we know.  I do in fact know that one day I will walk through the valley of the shadow of death and I will not emerge.  It is a certainty.  The issue, though, is not what I know.  It is what I trust.  What do I trust in when it comes to death?  What I trust in is that when that day comes, I will be in the hands of a loving God who has promised that nothing will separate me from God’s love.  It is not a matter of what I know.  It is a matter of what I trust. 

The defeat of want is in trust.  The defeat of fear is in trust.  It all boils down to trust.  Both come from within ourselves as, in the end, freedom mostly does. 

Peace,

+Stacy