Magic tricks, magic bread, and how to trust a person instead

Thanks for the good story Mark! Ya got me thinking.

That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side.” Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”

He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.

He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”

They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”

I’m increasingly convinced that “faith” according to Jesus isn’t faith in an outcome. It’s faith in a person, in a relationship. That might be obvious to you. For me, it’s revolutionary. I see a familiar panic in the disciples.  “Jesus, if you cared about us, you would…”

            And the reply seems to be, “Of course I care about you. And of course I can do something about your situation. But I need you to believe that my care isn’t contingent upon the outcome. I need you to trust me because you know me.”

            I’ll embarrass myself here publicly. When Debra and I broke up sophomore year of college, I started spending time with another girl. I liked this girl but I wasn’t over Debra. So as much as I hate to admit it, late one night I sat down at my computer and typed up list of attributes for each girl to compare them “objectively”. As I read my list just now, I was tempted to laugh out loud, but the stronger response was horror and disgust.

I was so consumed with fear; and in some ways, I was desperately shallow. I talked in morbid detail about worst-case scenarios in which my life would be doomed to eternal misery because of some unseen flaw in the woman I chose to marry. Because of those soul-sucking fears, I led several girls on in high school and college but never got that serious about them. I took myself way too seriously.

            But in spite of my obdurate immaturity, I had a moment of fearless clarity one day after college. It was one of those rare time in which by God’s intervention I found myself in possession of a maturity that rightfully belonged only to a future me.

Debra and I were having pancakes at my house catching up after two years apart from each other. I bought a goose egg from an Asian market as an experiment. When I cracked it into the pan, a fully-formed goose fetus fell out! Masking my shocked revulsion, I shoveled the poor aborted bird into the garbage. Just pancakes then… As Debra and I talked about the last two years, the relationships we’d been in, the growth we’d experienced, the ways we’d felt challenged, a slow realization broke over me like a goose egg. I wanted to marry this woman and I couldn’t quite say why.

At the time, I suppose the reason I could point to was that I saw with profound clarity that she was a grower, a Jesus-follower who in spite of everything trusted God and would at the end of the day, give anything to walk with him and do what He asked of her.

She had faith in God himself, not because she imagined God would deliver the kind of life she expected or hoped for… but because she was enamored with God’s personality, the way He spoke to her, the gentleness and compassion He displayed toward her. So she trusted Him. I suddenly understood that this consideration should top my list.

Over the next few weeks, I remembered the reasons we broke up, the reservations I had before. But suddenly, the stranglehold of worst-case fears was gone. I knew we would unearth new and scary discoveries about each other. I just wanted to do it on the other side of commitment. So I asked her to marry me. And I’ve never felt so good about being told “no”. Nevertheless, 3 months later, I was watching my bride walk down the isle.

I remember standing there, feeling this calm yet savage and rebellious trust. As she walked down in her beautifully modest and understated way wearing that simple ivory dress, the strongest thoughts in my mind weren’t, “She’s compelling, beautiful, mysterious, noble, delightful, good.” The thought that rang like a bell (and has ever since) was, “She’s my choice. And I love her.”

I chose this woman “just because” and I’ve been choosing her “just because” ever since. That surprising resolution settled softly onto the inner sanctuary of my core beliefs. I trusted her. And my trust would no longer hinge on her performance or behaviors. I would always choose her.

I have to be honest though. Most of our conflicts (and there are plenty) come from me reneging on that commitment to trust her, to give her the benefit of the doubt. There are lots and lots and lots of feeble moments in which my heart (and sometimes my voice) shouts, “how can I trust you when you do _______?! I’m just being realistic based on the evidence I see.” But I’m not being realistic. I’m being scared out of my mind. And the fears always have more to do with future projections than present experiences. So the home base of maturity that I have to return to is that calmly savage place of having faith in my spouse, trusting her, and choosing her no matter what and just because.

I guess that’s also the home base of spiritual maturity… having faith. Not faith that everything will work out. Faith that God is with me in everything. Faith that God gives a damn. Faith that God is kind, is good, is involved with me. A new friend of mine says, “I became an atheist the moment my son died.” I have no judgment on my friend for saying that. It’s unwise for me to judge what I haven’t experienced and I can’t imagine the pain of losing  a child. (Though I suppose God knows that pain well… actually if God were the chess-player of open theism, I could almost imagine Him making that same statement!)

But I know that for me, I have to trust my heavenly Dad not because he delivers the good life (or even a tolerable life) but because he’s my Dad and nobody else treats me as kindly as Him, even in the middle of situations that feel profoundly cruel. Who else could I turn to?

So with achingly slow steps, I’m moving away from faith in stuff—in outcomes—to faith in a person, a relationship… ya know… just because!

I leave you with this excerpt from my favorite (nonbible) book in the whole wide universe. Hinds Feet in High Places is an allegory for the spiritual journey. I find it to be beautiful. This scene illustrates what I’m trying to communicate WAY better than I ever could:

            "This" said he, motioning toward the first of the silent figures, "is named Sorrow.  And the other is her twin sister, Suffering.".....Much-Afraid's cheeks blanched and she began to tremble from head to foot.  She felt so like fainting that she clung to the Shepherd for support.

              "I can't go with them," she gasped.  "I can't!  I can't!!  O my Lord Shepherd, why do you do this to me?  How can I travel in their company?  It is more than I can bear.  You tell me that the mountain way itself is so steep and difficult that I cannot climb it alone.  Then why, oh why must you allow Sorrow and Suffering to be my companions?"

A strange look passed over the Shepherd's face as he listened to this outburst, then looking at the veiled figures as he spoke, he answered very gently, "Remember your promise.  Will you still trust me, Much- Afraid?  Or do you wish to turn back to the Valley, to all your Fearing relatives, to Craven Fear himself?"

            The choice seemed terrible.  Fear she knew only too well, but Sorrow and Suffering had always seemed to her the most terrifying things she could encounter.  How could she go with them and abandon herself to their power?

            She looked at the Shepherd and suddenly knew... if she were unfit to love and be loved by anyone else in the world, yet in her trembling, miserable little heart, she did love him.  Even if he asked the impossible, she would not refuse.  

            "Others have gone this way before me," she thought, "and they could even sing about it afterwards.  Will he who is so strong and gentle be less faithful and gracious to me, weak and cowardly though I am, when it is so obvious that the thing he delights in most of all is to deliver his followers from all their fears and take them to the High Places??" 

            She replied, "Do I wish to turn back?  O Shepherd, to whom should I go?  In all the world I have none but you.  Help me to follow you, even though it seems impossible.  Help me to trust you as much as I long to love you."

            He replied softly, "Fear not, Much-Afraid, only believe.  My Peace I leave with you.  My Joy be fulfilled in you.