Not able to sleep one night (possibly because I had fallen asleep before my usual 9PM bedtime and awoke several hours later and couldn’t fall back to sleep), as I lay there meditating, I started hearing “trust in what you cannot see”. The next morning, not able to shake “trust in what you cannot see,” I did some research on “believe” and “trust.” While the words are sometimes used interchangeably, there is a difference between them: “trust means to have confidence in the reliability, truth, or ability of someone, and believe means to accept something as true, genuine, or real.” As I was meditating, in a moment of time, I had a vision of myself as a child on top of a high platform, thinking and struggling over how to get down without hurting myself. My father was standing there urging me to jump, reassuring me that he would catch me. I believed he could; however, I didn’t jump until I built enough confidence and trust in him to do it. In a leap of faith, I trusted him, and he proved to be trustworthy. I landed unharmed. In reality, my father had proven he was reliable, had the ability and capacity and, above all, he loved me and had my care and best interest at heart.
As I am growing on this journey called life, I have deepened my spiritual roots enough to know and believe in a power greater than humankind. The Creator of all life. To have faith in His love, capacity, and ability to catch me when I fall. So many people have a skewed vision of God because of a marred relationship with their natural father or male figure in their life. My relationship with my father was great. Oh, he had his faults, as all humans do, but he had a kind heart and was a great parent--a disciplinarian when necessary, he got his point across as to who was in charge, and he listened to what you had to say but was not a pushover. He was faithful in his role as father and provider, stern but caring. While my father wasn’t perfect, he was a hero to me. My five sisters and I sometimes still banter over who was his favorite, because he had the ability to make each of us feel as though we were special and his favorite (truth be told, I was, for real). As a little kid, I followed him around; I was his shadow. When I got old enough, we went to basketball and football games together. While we attended church, the concept of God as Father didn’t sink in immediately. Especially when mostly what I heard in church scared me; I was afraid I would literally “burn in hell” if I didn’t get baptized and “join church.” I lived scared that if--consciously or unconsciously--I did something wrong (sinned), to hell I would go. So, in my early years in church, I spent time trying to earn my way to Heaven, the eternal reward. Somewhere along the journey, I realized it was not about religion, but relationship. God wanted to have a relationship with me. As in all relationships, I had to work at building it, which required a paradigm shift in my misconceptions about God and accepting His love and genuine concern for my wellbeing. That was developed by spending time in solitude listening to my innermost being, in meditation, reading the Bible to know what His word says, and praying and spending time with like-minded people. In his poem “Reason, Season and a Lifetime,” Brian A. “Drew” Chalker expresses my thoughts about a lifetime friendship/relationship with God: “People always come into your life for a reason, a season and a lifetime. When you figure out which it is, you know exactly what to do. When someone is in your life for a REASON, it is usually to meet a need you have expressed outwardly or inwardly. They have come to assist you through a difficulty, or to provide you with guidance and support, to aid you physically, emotionally, or even spiritually. They may seem like a godsend to you, and they are. They are there for a
reason, you need them to be. Then, without any wrongdoing on your part or at an inconvenient time, this person will say or do something to bring the relationship to an end. Sometimes they die, sometimes they just walk away. Sometimes they act up or out and force you to take a stand. What we must realize is that our need has been met, our desire fulfilled; their work is done. The prayer you sent up has been answered and it is now time to move on. When people come into your life for a SEASON, it is because your turn has come to share, grow, or learn. They may bring you an experience of peace or make you laugh. They may teach you something you have never done. They usually give you an unbelievable amount of joy. Believe it! It is real! But, only for a season. And like Spring turns to Summer and Summer to Fall, the season eventually ends. LIFETIME relationships teach you a lifetime of lessons; things you must build upon in order to have a solid emotional foundation. Your job is to accept the lesson, love the person/people (anyway); and put what you have learned to use in all other relationships and areas in your life. It is said that love is blind, but friendship is clairvoyant. Thank you for being part of my life...”
Ask yourself, where does my personal relationship with the Creator stand? Have I pushed it to the back because of life’s circumstances and situations that hinder me from trusting in what I cannot see? Or is it strengthened because deep inside I feel, sense, and know there is Some One greater, drawing me to both believe and trust so I can enjoy life’s joys and endure life’s disappointing suddenlies, knowing my heavenly Father uses every experience to enhance my relationship with Him and other? My prayer: “Father, help me to learn every lesson that life brings in order to grow up more into our relationship of being secure in you and being ‘totally known and totally accepted’.”