fai T h is for Trust

There is an activity we used in Youth Ministry called the “trust fall”. The idea is to help the youth group to learn to trust each other enough to be able to do this activity. A participant stands, usually blindfolded, with back to group, heels together and arms crossed, and then lets his or her body fall backward assuming the other members will catch them. I don’t think I’ve been involved with any activity more powerful in my career. It’s pretty easy to understand that a “trust fall” occurs rarely.

Being able to simply let go, and trust totally is amazing. The “T” in Faith stands for Trust the trustworthy Lord. Peter had a trust fall type experience. After a prayer vigil, Jesus took a walk to where the disciples were. They were floating in a boat, he was walking on the lake. They were terrified and when Jesus told them to be strong, Peter responded with, “Lord, if it’s you, tell me to come to you on the water” (Matthew 14:28). Low and behold, Jesus said, “Come.” So there was Peter walking on the water until he started looking around at the waves and got scared and started to sink. Jesus saved him but said, “You of little FAITH, why did you doubt?”

Faith in Jesus and trust in Jesus go hand in hand. Jesus does not call on us to be comfortable or normal, he calls on us to live strangely in this world. It can take as much courage as walking on water. Throughout the Scripture, trust in the Holy God is required. Consider the courageous heroes of Scripture – their stream of trust in God isn’t far away (Hebrews 11). I pray that as we take the Journey of Faith with mwLTC and with VBS that our trust in God will be strengthened.

What storms in your life cause you to doubt? What worry do we have which would cause Jesus to ask us, "Why did you doubt"? What storms in our lives as Christians at Center Road cause us to doubt our future? We will not automatically trust that Jesus is at work in our congregation – but we got to start somewhere. So start with a simple question like this: “do I trust Jesus to lead the leaders of this church through whatever storms we face? You probably saw those meeting signs with red seat around recently. I admit that I’ve done my fair share of eye rolling over the years about meetings, but our last elders, deacons and minister’s meeting was particularly encouraging to me. I sat in a room of godly men constantly encouraging each other with you in mind while putting their trust in Jesus. I didn’t get in line for the trust fall, though. I think we can put our heels together and fall back – they’ll catch us. More, Jesus will use them to catch us.

Jesus Christ ALONE is worthy of our trust.