Trust Falls and Trust Fails

January 10, 2025 00:21:50
Trust Falls and Trust Fails
The Wake-Up Call
Trust Falls and Trust Fails

Jan 10 2025 | 00:21:50

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Show Notes

Trust isn't built by falling. Trust is learned by leaning.

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Episode Transcript

PRAYER OF CONSECRATION Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.  Abba, I belong to you. I lift up my heart to you. I set my mind on you. I fix my eyes on you. I offer my body to you as a living sacrifice. Abba, we belong to you.  Praying in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.  Proverbs 3:5–6 ESV Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. CONSIDER THIS A new friend recently told me a story about his growing-up years. One day when he was a young boy, his father told him to climb the staircase in his home while the father remained on the ground floor. When he reached the top of the stairs, his father stretched out his arms and motioned for the boy to jump from the top into his arms. After getting up his courage, the son leapt off the top stair with all he had, abandoning himself into the arms of his father below. Only the father stepped out of the way just as he jumped, allowing his son to crash to the floor below. After he was done crying, his father knelt on the floor beside the boy and said, "Never trust anyone."  My friend recounted the years it had taken him to learn to trust in God after this trust fall turned into a trust fail.   The egregious nature of this story is hard to believe until we remember some version of it from our own past. In one way or another, through the betrayal of people, the tragedy of circumstances, or through our own personal failures, life has broken our trust. And this breaking of trust has broken our heart. It happens to most of us at a time in our lives when we don't know how to deal with it. Instead of seeking to heal our hearts, we tend to build walls of protection around them; to prevent such a thing from happening again. It works to a point, until we realize (usually years later) that our heart has become trapped behind those walls. In this way our broken hearts become hardened. Interestingly, we will tend to go in one of two directions in our relationships with other people—we will establish very high boundaries and keep our distance from others, or we will develop very low boundaries and tend toward becoming enmeshed with them. In the most fundamental sense, this is what it means to be broken as a human being. In that light, notice the first line of the verse: Trust in the LORD with all your heart, We want for our hearts to be healed. We long to be wholehearted. I believe this is largely why this is the number-one, most-selected verse for 2025 (and every year).  and do not lean on your own understanding. Our problem is that we are navigating our lives from our own broken frameworks and mental maps, which come from the trust fails in our past. All of our high performance striving, all of our dysfunctional people-pleasing patterns, all of our secret addictions—they all come from leaning on our own understanding. And, for better or worse, while leaning on our own understanding may have gotten us to this point in our lives. It will not get us to where we long to be. It's why the text shows us how our heart can be healed.  In all your ways acknowledge him, Notice the connection between "all your heart" and "all your ways." Now, notice the word at the center of this word acknowledge: "know." Interestingly, the Hebrew word behind this word is yada. It is a term of deepest intimacy. Jesus cares about the largest matters in our lives and the smallest details. He cares about all of it. He wants for us to know him in the midst of it all and he wants to know us. This is why he wants to teach us to "abide" in him. And do you know what he most wants you to hear coming from his whole heart to your broken heart? These words: I am your friend.  It's why I think trust falls are probably not the best approach. Trust isn't built by falling. Trust is learned by leaning. We learn to lean little by little, in this difficult decision and that crisis moment, until we find ourselves putting our full weight on the one in whom we are entrusting our hearts. To trust the Lord with all of our heart requires trusting him with piece by piece of our hearts. Only he can put the puzzle together because only he sees the top of the puzzle box. It's another way of saying . . .   and he will make straight your paths. THE PRAYER FOR Lord Jesus—Word of God from before the beginning—our Great Teacher, Thank you for this word about trust and heart and the brokenness of my ways. Thank you even more that you want to bring the wholeness of your ways into my brokenness of heart. Jesus, mostly thank you for being my friend. I want to lean in until I am leaning fully on you. Thank you for being there and welcoming this.  Lord, it will be for your glory, for others' gain, and for our good.   Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise him all creatures here below. Praise him above ye heavenly host. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen! 

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