“Do You Trust Me?” by Brian Flanagan, Fiat Ventures
Second Sunday of Lent
“Do you trust me?” That’s an interesting question to be asked. If someone were to ask me that question, I think I’d get suspicious and say, “Sure…actually that depends, why do you ask?”
“Do you trust me?” is a question often asked in movies. Aladdin to Jasmine when they’re about to step onto the magic carpet, for example. The question might precede some kind of amazing experience, end result, or even a matter of someone’s urgent personal safety; and there’s usually a risk involved to get there.
There are plenty of examples of this in the Bible, where God asks someone to trust him. Think of Peter walking on the water toward Jesus. Or Moses when God promises from the Burning Bush that he’ll be with him when he goes to Pharoah and says, “Let my people go.” Abraham in particular has a few of these moments. God asks for his trust when he tells him that even in old age, he’ll become a father, and the father of many nations at that. At first it sounds a little far-fetched, but eventually Abraham trusts God and Isaac is born. Isaac is to be the son through which all these descendants will come.
So you can imagine Abraham’s surprise when God asks for his trust again, which we hear about in the first reading this week. God tells Abraham to take Isaac up to the top of a mountain and offer him up as a sacrifice. Abraham knows that God is trustworthy, and though he may not understand how this could possibly be part of God’s plan, he obeys and heads up the mountain with Isaac.
He even goes as far as raising up the knife, when an angel prevents him from doing Isaac any harm. The angel says, “I know now how devoted you are to God, since you did not withhold from me your own beloved son.” Everyone breathed a sigh of relief except the ram caught by its horns in the thicket, which God had provided to be offered as sacrifice in place of Isaac.
What is it in your life that you don’t trust God with? If you felt deep down like God was asking you to give up a sport you play or break up with your boyfriend/girlfriend, would you? Would you change your career or move across the country if he asked you to? If something comes to mind that you’d say, “I probably wouldn’t t trust God with _______ “, then maybe that is something you should think about this Lent. Are you more attached to whatever that person/place/thing is than you are to God? Even if he’s not asking you to give that thing up, is it somehow standing in the way of your friendship with him?
A great exercise for us during Lent is to work on our detachment. What are we so attached to that we prioritize it over God, and what can we try to let go of a bit, to make more room for him? If we do this, by the time Easter comes around, we can have a newfound trust in God that if, and when, he asks us to go out on a limb, we’ll be able to do it. So take a moment and hear God ask that question; “Do you trust me?”