Learning to Trust God Has Not Been Easy For Me

Learning. To. Trust. God. Has. Not. Been. Easy. For. Me.  No "Jack and the Beanstalk" magic foreshadowed it.  A peddler didn't meet me on the way to the Corner Store, open his pack of goodies, and trade the money Mother had entrusted me with for a few measly beans. No. Learning to trust  God, the Almighty, with my life has been arduous, a seeming landmine pockmarked by explosions (boom!) if I were fortunate, or unexpected detours if I just didn't know any better.  I am a "living witness," as the old Deacons professed,  that spending a lifetime in churches, does not guarantee a deep-in-the-belly knowledge and understanding of an Omnipotent, Omnipresent, and Omniscient God and of Who He is: Attending Sunday School as a child; serving on the Junior Usher Board; segueing into adult memberships; and serving time on the Mourners Bench, I presumed, would suffice.

 I truly believed (hoped?) that attending Sunday worship services, Summer Revivals, and "Special Days," then repeating the process with my children, constituted "Works," the pathway to Heaven. I recall a childhood sitting in my parents' Church on sweltering hot days and frigid Chicago nights, being scared almost to death by a Preacher who painted vivid pictures of unrelenting hellfire and brimstone. He assured us that we would be imprisoned me forever in a place impossible to escape.  I'm not frightened now, nor was I after I figured out, as a pre-teen, a way to escape Sunday services and mid-week prayer meetings unscathed.  Homework and school projects became keys to the jail cell Church had become for me!  Since education promised better lives for their children, my parents embraced the mantra, "Go to school; gt a good education, and you'll be "Somebody!"

 For me, trust was mercurial when it should have been resolute and unyielding  Long into adulthood, trust appeared as a moving target, similar to the challenge of throwing rings around mechanical ducks at an amusement park.  Even now, especially when things seem bleak and unappetizing, I find it cumbersome to trust Him.  Within the past year, however,  I understood that Believers do not have to earn "Gold stars" to be blessed by God. It seemed natural for me to transfer a belief in "meritocracy," (corporate-speak justifying inequities), into the religious realm.  Yet when I read, "Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom" (Luke 12:32), I was thoroughly taken aback (to put it mildly).

Did the verse mean I did not have to earn God's love, that I did not have to outshine everyone else,  or stay in perpetual competition mode to guarantee His attention or favor? Really? Oh my goodness! Jail doors in my mind opened miraculously. I exhaled! I exhaled! I expelled a who-knows-how long-held-breath, finally releasing myriad, pent-up emotions and fears in one metaphorically explosive breath. Hallelujah! The Mississippi Mass Choir sang it best: "I'm free, praise the Lord, I'm free.  No longer bound, no more chains holding me.  My soul is resting; it's just a blessing.  Praise the Lord, Hallelujah, I'm free!"