Just Trust

“Just trust God and everything will work out.”

I don’t know how many times I’ve heard this in my life. I appreciate the sentiment and all, but I think this phrase is fatally flawed.

God is not a genie. He is not waiting in a magic lamp to grant us our deepest wishes.

Usually, that phrase accompanies dark moments for us. Moments when God seems distant and uncaring. Moments when the world is not as it should be. Usually, that phrase is intended to provide hope for someone who is feeling rather hopeless. And in those times, that phrase makes sense - if for no other reason than to provide comfort.

But the words aren’t true.

Everything doesn’t always work out. Sometimes things get drastically worse. And at times, things don’t work out at all. The truth is that we live in a broken world with broken people. As long as that is the case, things will not always work out. It’s not in our nature for everything to work out.

Not every cancer goes into remission. Not every illness is met with healing. And not every soul finds redemption.

Everything doesn’t always work out. Just read the paper or turn on the TV and you’ll see more than enough examples of this. Ask the residents of Iraq if “everything will work out.” Or the starving children in Africa. Or the mother of gang members gunned down on the street.

Broken world. Broken people.

But the first part of that phrase is paramount. “Just trust God.” Leave the addendum out. Don’t think of God as some magician waiting to reveal that it was all a trick to begin with. That’s insulting to someone who could sneeze and wipe-out entire galaxies. If He sneezed, of course.

It’s that trusting that we need. It’s that acceptance that sometimes things will not work out like we hoped. That things will often not go the way they should, or the way we desire. We need that trust. When we can’t make sense of things, it is that simple trust - with no addendum - that is critical.

Without trust, there isn’t hope.

So, no, everything will not work out. It may get worse. It may get really, really bad. You may never know the reasons why, in fact.

Just trust.

This entry was posted on August 28, 2007 at 7:36 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.