Not So Light Lenten Reflections

Week 1

“Oh,Sweetie...”

Part 2

How long does it take for the dirt to settle in a trench that had been twelve feet deep? Estimates vary, but two to five years seems to be the average numbers we saw in our research. I considered these numbers as we went about our plans to put our house on the market. Our realtor suggested an “as is” clause when we finally listed our property. We also had mounded and seeded and watered the filled dirt to show some attempt at reclaiming our front lawn.

In the weeks between the trench digging and the meeting with the realtor, I threw myself a spiritual pity party, one of those “Woe is me! God, You just don't get what we need here.” I've been in places of spiritual despondency before, and I still prayed. Because I've always seen prayer as talking to God, my praying now resembled the difficult conversation one might have with someone close to you that you are in conflict with at the moment. I grumbled and I cried and I sulked and, finally, after a few weeks, I felt spent enough to pray “Oh, Lord, I just want to be able to trust you again.” I immediately felt a peace I had not had for awhile and I “heard” the Lord say to me, “Oh, Sweetie, you've never trusted me...”

Now, I should probably explain that when I say I “heard” the Lord, I don't mean an audible voice. Usually, when I “hear” the Lord, there is a sense of someone - not me - putting words in my mind that I recognize as being too wise for me to have come up with on my own. Often it happens when I am reading scripture and the words jump off the page and take on a wisdom and meaning that I had not seen before. Sometimes there is a new insight and a sense of peace regarding something I'm praying about and I know God is present at that time. And sometimes, like in this instance, there are very clear and surprising words that pop into my head that cause me to say, “God, is that you?”

“Oh, Sweetie, you've never trusted me...”

When I heard those words I was immediately struck by three things almost simultaneously. One was that I knew what I had heard was absolutely true, that I didn't know how to trust God. There was absolutely no feeling of condemnation in the words I heard, only love and tenderness. I really did, at that moment, feel like God's Sweetie, and He was just telling me something that I was finally able to hear, something that I had really needed to know for some time, and now the right time had come for me to receive it. Secondly, I had a glimpse of what true trust in God was for perhaps the first time in my spiritual life. And thirdly – and this took the form of a question to God – what was that thing I had been doing all those years when I thought I had been trusting God?

I started to examine that third thing first. I asked the Lord to show me what I had confused as trust for all those years I thought I had been trusting. What I began to see was that in all the times of my life when I knew I needed to look to God, when I needed to depend upon Him in health crises, relational issues and practical issues, I could only see the passive side of “trust”. I was good at being resigned. I was good at being submitted. I was good at being compliant. I was good at being acquiescent. Acquiescent is defined as accepting something reluctantly but without protest. Yes, I was especially good at that. On the whole, I had seen “trust” as something passive that was put upon me, that I had no choice in, something I reluctantly accepted. And I think God blessed my compliance, my incomplete “trust”, knowing that was all I knew how to give during those times. But was any of this true trust? Now, I had had a glimpse of the active side of trust, true trust as being a joyful movement toward God, an expectation of His hand over my life and an expectation of His working in whatever my situation. Trust now looked like an interesting mix of actively leaning into God and resting in a place of joyful peace rather than passivity.

In the weeks that followed the sewer fiasco, I immersed myself in scriptures about trust and asked God to transition me from the purely passive acquiescent side of trust to the fully active, often joyous side of trust. I was somewhat amused, definitely humbled, and a little embarrassed to be such a latecomer to true trust. I had just celebrated my fiftieth year as a Believer and one of the first scriptures I had ever memorized was Proverbs 3:5, Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. I guess I was trusting the Lord with only part of my heart and leaning on my own understanding to shoulder the rest.

I prayed about and contemplated true trust during that time we were preparing to sell our old home and buy a new one near Minneapolis. I trusted the Lord to bring a buyer that could overlook the mound of now newly greened grass in the front yard. I trusted the Lord to find us a townhome that would meet our needs as we grew older. He sent us twelve viewers on day one of our house listing. He sent us five offers on day two, all above asking price. The one we accepted was high enough to almost fully cover the cost of the sewer replacement, and the new buyer graciously accepted the front lawn in progress. On the Minneapolis end, we found our almost perfect townhome and were able to schedule two closings within a few days of each other. I came
to know that God is good and completely to be trusted. How sweet to be His Sweetie...

Trust in the Lord with all your heart,

and do not lean on your own understanding.

In all your ways acknowledge him,

and he will make straight your paths.

- Proverbs 3:5,6