R.(13b) Lord, you give back to everyone according to his works.
Only in God is my soul at rest;
from him comes my salvation.
He only is my rock and my salvation,
my stronghold; I shall not be disturbed at all.
R. Lord, you give back to everyone according to his works.
Only in God be at rest, my soul,
for from him comes my hope.
He only is my rock and my salvation,
my stronghold; I shall not be disturbed.
R. Lord, you give back to everyone according to his works.
Trust in him at all times, O my people!
Pour out your hearts before him;
God is our refuge!
R. Lord, you give back to everyone according to his works. Let’s begin with a question. If the Lord is our rock, our stronghold and we know, not believe, this to be undisputedly true, we have the right and, perhaps, even the obligation to trust wholly in Him. The question is this. If we wear the armor of being protected by God at all times, we do we still fear?
I have rolled this idea around so often the edges have box holding my thoughts have been worn into rounded corners. I confess to God. I believe in God. I KNOW He exists. I live in a world and in a life where reminders of His love are ever-present. The giant orange orb that is creeping up over the hills east of my house reminds me there is a cycle and rhythm that exists to balance us from day to day, month to month and even year to year. The seasons bring purpose to all things. I know this. I delight in the brilliant color emerging from the once green blanket of leaves on the trees in my yard. I know God exists. I know he loves me or why else would things exist that range beyond simple function into a beauty that has no purpose but to bring us happiness. I know snow that falls will someday melt, and life will emerge again. I don’t question this in the least. Yet, I fear. Virtually every day.
Why do I fear if I know there is a loving God who, at the end of my days, will make everything right? Because I have free choice. We all have free choice. It is the price we pay for being created in his image. The answer lies in the mystery of the pulling and pushing of the conscious and subconscious. Fear is useful. It has a purpose. If we lived in the Serengeti, it would tell us when to start running. Conversely, Fight is also useful because if running won’t work, we need to stand our ground. In the end, however, whether you run or fight you do so as a response to fear which is a recognition of something which is a threat to our wellbeing.
Over time I have to come to understand the interplay between fear and trust is different than I used to think true. Previously I believed that trust should eliminate fear, to obliterate, to make it disappear from sight and be no more. As my faith has grown, sustained by practice, knowledge, and experience, my trust in God has grown with it. Fear, however, remains constant. My conscious mind can look at the fear that is welling up out of my subconscious and just shake its head in disbelief that the subconscious will not just get the message it hears every single time it pushes fear at me. There is nothing to fear, there is nothing that will harm me. Nothing can happen that can’t be overcome or endured.
If a trust does not destroy fear, what purpose does it serve? The answer I now believe is that trust brings hope to a setting where hope is the best answer to fear that has no basis in reality. Because I trust, I know the fear will eventually dissipate like the steam rising off warming asphalt after a hard rain. The rain will fall again but my trust offers the hope I need to wait out the storm.
What is also true is the fear is not eternal, but it will be ever-present until it is burned away by the hot sun of eternal life.
I fear. I trust. I hope. At first, I was sad to accept that cycle will repeat countless times through the remaining days of my life but then I appreciated the bigger truth. I am human and, as we all do, I live within a human body so I am constrained by the limits of that body. The alternative could be that I could be bound up by fear and not have the faith it takes to trust fear will never win. It cannot because it has already lost.
