Learning to Trust

I have always been somewhat vertically challenged. Not just in personal stature but also in a fear of heights – specifically a fear of falling.

My first related memory goes back to when I was two years old.
We lived in the country with a few animals and my mother would have to go outside to do the chores. Not able to take me with her on cold or rainy days she would set me up on her hope chest that sat under the window from where I could see her walk to the barn and watch for her to come back to the house.
When she came back in she would lift me down from the chest.

One day instead of helping me down, she said I should get off by myself. She showed me how to get down on my stomach and then she said “Ok, now just slide.”
I was terrified. My feet were dangling in mid air, my little outstretched hands grasping onto the chest and I hung on for dear life, begging my mother to help me.
She just stood there …. Laughing. I could not understand why she would not rescue me from certain injury or death…. Surely she could see the danger I was in.
The fear I felt was intense.
I tried desperately to hold on but my hands were getting tired, I could feel them beginning to slip. I tried harder to hold on, crying for my Mom to help me… but she did nothing.
Finally, my hands could hold me no longer, I was slipping… falling… falling……
And then … I was standing on the floor. My feet had been about two inches off the floor the whole time.
I remember feeling foolish and embarrassed.

Almost daily we hear of another tragedy, a disaster, a fatal accident or a shocking crime.
All of us have encountered times in our life where everything seems dark, there is no where to turn, and we feel helpless and fearful.
There are times when suddenly we find our world turned upside down, the rug pulled out from under us, our security blanket snatched away.
When bad things happen, our questions seem to have no answers, our cries and tears are met with silence.

We call out to God, wondering where He is – is He not going to help us? Our hearts feel the agony, the fear, the sorrow. We feel that we are dangling over the precipice about to be dashed to the rocks below. No one is there to help.

Finally we can hold on no longer … our hands slip …. We are falling….
But then….
We realize that the solid Rock was under our feet the whole time. God was standing by watching, guarding, waiting for us to let go and find to our relief that He was there to catch us.
“The eternal God is thy refuge and underneath are the everlasting arms…” (Deut.33:27)

When a parent eagles recognize their young are ready to fly they push them out of the nest.
The terrified eaglet falls tumbling to the ground but the parent eagle is watching… and swoops down to catch the eaglet on its outstretched wings -then shakes it off, and catches it again until the eaglet discovers its own wings and the joy of flying!
God uses this analogy to assure us that He will not let us fall…..”Ye have seen … how I bare you on eagles wings and brought you to myself.” (Ex. 19:4)
Our difficult times are meant to be the vehicles, the chariots, that carry us up to God.

My Mother wanted me to overcome my fear.
So God also sometimes waits just as my Mother did, not to terrify us, but to teach us to trust Him. To know that no matter what happens God is there as the One we can trust implicitly. When we put all our trust in Him, we will know the peace that circumstances cannot disturb.
“Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee, because he trusteth in thee.” (Is. 26:3)