Day 39 - Issue 23
John 14:11 NLT
'Just believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me. Or at least believe because of the work you have seen me do.'
I’ve written before about my confusion over relationships. I am surprised that I have found two completely different women in Katey and Jayne who have each loved me more than I might have imagined, and so much more than I deserve. Other relationships from school, university and then church have all been seasonal. They have endured for a period and then ended. I have concluded, perhaps in an attempt to protect my own heart, that relationships are purpose driven. That is, they exist for the creation and delivery of an objective, and cannot survive the achievement of their purpose.
Jesus here speaks of trust as an imperative in the relationship between the divine and humanity. Trust is challenging, especially if we’ve felt betrayed. Jayne, betrayed by her first husband who abandoned her seven months pregnant with their first child, very understandably struggles to this day with issues of trust. And I sense I’m no longer looking for friendship, since I’ve not really seen a relationship endure, except in my two marriages. Trust is not simply about a theoretical conviction, it is based upon the reliability of the person in which I place my trust.
I was recently generously invited to write an endorsement for a tremendous book on the ageing process. It was associated with an organisation I’d worked for and from which the separation had been painful for all the wrong reasons. I found I was unable to get beyond my woundedness to write the endorsement, and finally acknowledged that to its author. We used to say to our daughter trust is easy to give, but once lost is so very difficult to recover and rebuild.
Jesus says you can begin to believe on the basis of the things you experience and observe that God does, but this only establishes a fragile trust. Trust is seen in its greatest expression when I retain my confidence even when I can find no objective evidence to support that trust. It is based purely on my conviction about another’s trustworthiness.
QUESTION: Who do you trust and why?
PRAYER: Lord Jesus, help me to not just to believe on you but to trust in you.
