Trust

Over the years, I've watched many people rebel against God, or give up their faith and walk away from Him entirely. It's only increasingly pursuing Him myself over the past couple that's caused me to feel the weight of sorrow at the sheer tragedy of that.

It's hard acknowledging that there's no person with all the answers; no person that will never falter; no person I can use as a rock, to keep me steady. With this on my mind, I'm reminded of how much I put other people on pedestals. And as time passes and life happens, bringing with them the trials that truly test us, one by one, these people fall off their pedestals, leaving me with a lot of trouble trusting again.

Ultimately I know this is another cleansing fire for me. And what it means is that it's time for me to start putting all of my trust in God, which is something I've always had trouble with. That's what lies at the very heart of my doubt. It's never been a question of disbelief, only of trusting that God has me, my life, and every circumstance therein carefully cupped in His hands, and that He cares enough about it all to take care of it.

I don't believe this means I can't trust other people. But it does mean to trust them within the confines of the understanding that they will fall and fail, whereas God never will. This, too, is something with which I've struggled, because of my desire to be able to completely trust someone who's physically and tangibly there. But where wisdom from others has fallen on my deaf ears, repeated experience has proven futility in such a desire.

It's always been more or less binary for me: either a person can be trusted universally, or they can't be trusted at all. But that's not the truth. Trust between people has to be gradual, and never absolute. That's an aspect of relationship that's exclusively for God, and I think will be a sign of maturing faith when it's there. He wants my absolute trust, and it cannot be shared with other things.