Have you ever had to go to one of those team building meetings that seem so popular these days with companies and organizations? The whole bases for these meetings are to get your staff or organization to work together as a cohesive unit.
Each of those meetings use various games, all geared to solve some problem; creating a stories out of random words drawn from a hat, building a structure out of straws, or drawing a picture from the instructions proffered by their team members. One of the oldest of these games is a trust building exercise where one person falls backwards into the waiting arms of another person. At least they hope that they will be caught.
Building trust is essential in any relationship. In our spiritual life it is mandatory. Hard habits are hard to break. Especially here in Texas we are an independent breed. We hold the notion that we will be beholding to no man. We think that, “If it is to be, it is up to me.” We would not even trust one of our own family members to catch us in one of those exercises. My family would yell, “Ole,” laughing as I crashed into the floor.
We spend most of our lives making ourselves into our own personal god. It is extremely hard for us to “Let go and let God.” Most of us would say that I trust God to take care of XYZ, but I’ll take care of the rest. It does not even have to be on a conscience level. We can let God have every aspect of our lives and yet still find ourselves picking up things or worrying about things that are not ours to worry about.
Jesus said follow me because my yoke is light. It is light because He is taking care of everything. Doing all the heavy lifting. The weary can have rest because He is carrying their burdens. It is all in His power not in ours. If it was up to us we would mess it up every time. Nothing says that we mistrust God like a joyless life filled with drudgery.
Not too long ago I was blessed to perform the wedding of a dear friend. This was not my first Rodeo, not my first wedding. It was important that it go off without of a hitch. I have been preaching off and on since 2002 and I have always been a little nervous before a sermon.
While preparing the sermon I trusted God to give me the right words. I trusted Him to give me the right passages to read from. I even trusted Him to run all aspects of the service. Yet I was more nervous than I’ve ever been. I almost forgot the sermon that I had spent hours memorizing. The rings got tangled in the strings of the pillow. I had to have one of the groomsmen untie it so that I could do the ring ceremony.
I was upset that the wedding had not come off the way that I had thought that it would. I was so disappointed. I had the perfect passages. I had thought of everything that could go wrong and had minimized it. I had memorized the sermon and I had it down cold. All that I had to do was to preach the service. Give me a half an hour and I could still do the service by memory today.
And yet… and yet… After the service I prayed. I asked God why things had gone wrong, why I was so nervous. The answer that God gave me stunned me. He said,” You did not Trust me.” “You trusted me in everything, but when it came to the sermon you did not trust me.” “When it came to the most important part, you did not trust me.”
In the clutch I did not trust God to catch me. I figured that he would let me fall so I took things into my own hands. I tried to do it in my own power. I took out the “me” god, and put it at the center of my life. I should have seen the outcome before it even happened. Trust is essential in any relationship. Our relationship with God is no different. It may take a while but we can cultivate a relationship built on trust. It does not even take toilet paper suits or crayon drawings suitable for framing on you fridge.
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