While I was in Scotland, during a conference one of the people speaking told us about Coracles.
A coracle is an Irish boat. There was a period of time when these boats were primarily being utilized by someone who did not have a destination, but they were assured God was going to guide them where He wanted them to be. They would launch out in blind faith and see where the tide took them.
I have kept this image in mind as 2011 came to a close and I ventured into 2012.
Last Saturday I was grappling with letting something go that I'd been holding onto for so long. As I sat in my friend's car, sharing what was on my heart I found myself using the metaphor of ships.
Too often we let barnacles and sea anemones build up and cover up our lives. We forget to be diligent in maintaining our vessel unto God. When we finally realize this junk is no good for the integrity of our framework, we now have to put in hours of backbreaking, sun-scorching labor to be rid of all that's weighing us down.
Why do we ever let things slow us down?
And then there's the flip side of trying to furl our sails to catch any hint of wind to speed us along to whatever destination we think sounds like it might be maybe what God possibly wants for us .........
We wrestle to take control of the helm from the One who knows the path, the waters, the stars, and the ultimate place He has set for us to discover.
I said to my friend, "We forget that Jesus has already run the race of life. He is deeply aware of all the trials and fears we experience. Not only does He know my specific journey, He is taking in every journey that is happening now, that has happened, and will happen. It makes sense that when we disobey Him, our life turns into a shipwreck."
There is something so satisfying when you realize you serve a Captain who you can completely trust and you can take joy in living out His orders while navigating the seas. Or as Matthew 8:27 puts it "And the men marveled, saying, 'What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?'"
He is a good Man, He is a steady Man.
If we are obedient and diligent under His command, He can bring smooth sailing to your ship.
Christ is the sort of Man who can bring peace even to dangerous storms. How much more will He pour out peace to you if you are fully attentive to His voice as He calls out to you?
I end with a question I'm finding myself needing to constantly ask myself. It may sound simple, but it is powerful and potent.
Do you trust God?
Showing posts with label trust. Show all posts
Showing posts with label trust. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Right Relationships - Part 1 Love and Trust
I've been reading this awesome book called "Right Relationships" by Tom Marshall and really wanted to share some of the insightful wisdom that is spread through out it. And yes, words are spelled differently in proper English ;) :)
(from the introduction chapter)
All relationships of whatever kind consist of four basic elements or factors. They constitute the basic building blocks. Other things maybe be involved, may even be very important, the four, however, are essential. If any of them are neglected or adversely affect the relationship will come under stress. If the failure is not addressed or corrected, the relationship will begin to break down.
1. Love - the most enduring
2. Trust - the most fragile
3. Respect of honour - the most neglected, and
4. Understanding or knowledge - the one that takes the longest.
The relative importance of these elements may differ in different relationships. In the relationship between followers and leaders, trust may be the dominant element, between employers and employee it maybe respect, between members of a family it may be love. Nevertheless all four are essential in every relationship and none can be neglected without serious consequences. Similarly the way in which they are expressed may vary. Love between husband and wife is different than love between friend or between teacher and pupil, but it has to be there, in every relationship.
Furthermore the elements are no substitutes for one another. You cannot compensate for failure in one area by extra attention to another. You cannot say "I don't trust him, but I still love him." Love will not make up for mistrust. You cannot say "I have lost respect for her, but I still really understand her." Understanding will not make up for disrespect. Relationships were made to stand solidly on four legs, if one if weak they will wobble, if two go they will undoubtedly collapse.
(from the chapter on Love)
Love is actually a response that is meant to engage all our faculties. God who is love and therefore the author and beginner of it has laid down the parameters of love very clearly, although I doubt we realise the significance of the statement. To love, God says, is to do it with "all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength." Love that is only a matter of warm feelings is mere sentiment, love that engages only our mind is only admiration, and love that is only a matter of will is charity in its cold, negative sense. We may say then that love has essential attributes of an attitude, that is, there is a cognitive or intellectual element, there is also an emotional or feeling element and there is also a behavioural element. A loving attitude is what counts in relationships.
We have to realise the extreme significance of love God first. It is not the God wants to be king of the castle or top of the popularity poll but it is only when we love God first that we can properly and freely love other people. The reality of our created nature is that we were made for divine love. We have a created need to be loved with a love that is totally dependable and eternally changeless. We have a deep longing for the security of being loved, for ourselves and for no other reason, not for what we can do, or give, or achieve, but just for ourselves. Only God can love like that. Only God loves out of fulness and not out of need. Only He loves us for ourselves alone. Only His love is as changeless as Himself. Unless however, out need for that kind of love is satisfied by God's love we will go looking for it from people, and none of them can provide it, not lover, friend, wife, parent or brother. We lay impossible burdens on marriage, friendships or other relationships to provide up with divine love.
Furthermore we have an instinctive sense of the supreme value of love so that we want to invest our love only on somebody who is totally worthy of it and somebody who will live up to all our ideals as a worthy object. But only one person will never let us down. That is Christ. We can love Him with all out heart, mind, soul, and strength and never be disappointed by flaws in His character or defects in His behaviour. If however we do not invest our love on God we look for standards of performance in return for love, that no human person can possibly attain. We say, or convey, to our husband or our children, "I love you so much you must never disappoint me or let me down." Impossible. They never took on an assignment like that nor do they have any hope of meeting such requirements.
The marvellous thing is that when we love God first and before all, then our need for the divine, unchanging love is satisfied. If it then that our need for a perfect person to love is met and we are set free to five and receive what human love can five and receive - variable, up and down, all-over-the-place, warm, passionate, friendly, affectionate, caring human love and response. Great stuff, but like ourselves, vastly less than perfect.
Care is not a matter of having warm affectionate feelings towards people, it is about attending to their welfare and best interests as faithfully and as consistently as we attend to out own. Mutual care leads to harmony and fruitful interaction, Whenever it is neglected, or we become care-less, the result is strife, contention and inefficiency.
(from the chapter on Trust)
1. Trust is a choice you make.
2. Trust is an attitude. - The things that determine way we live and behave are our attitudes. Attitudes are more than beliefs because beliefs are purely cognitive and people to not generally live by their beliefs. Trust as an attitude has 3 elements: cognitive, emotional, behavioural.
3. Trust is a risk you take.
4. The proof that you trust is that you make no contingency plans in case the other person lets you down.
5. The cost of trust is vulnerability. It is this state of dependence which trust creates that we find the hardest to handle. The heart of our fallenness is our refusal to live in dependence on God. We have deliberately chosen to be independent, to seek self sufficiency, to control our own destiny. Trust strikes at the root of all these.
Since man has refused to accept the risk of depending on God he has to get his thrills in all sorts of inappropriate and harmful ways. We are created, it seems, with two great needs: the need for certainty and the need for uncertainty. These needs are met by a God who is always the same and whose love and word are totally reliable and unchanging. Our need for uncertainty is met by a God who is always doing new things. he is continually calling us out of the familiar into the walk of faith, into a personal relationship trusting dependence. The self sufficiency Adam sought never was and never is possible, so we are forced every day of our lives to choose to trust.
6. To be trusted is a responsibility you must voluntarily accept.
7. The person who would trust must also himself be trustworthy.
8. Accepting trust involves accountability.
9. Trust once broken is very difficult to restore. There is an all-or-nothing nature to trust. You either trust or you don't, you cannot partly trust, or if you do, the uncertainty created causes extreme discomfort. Similarly, when trust is broken it is never partial, if it is broken at all it is totally broken.
When trust is broken our supposedly dependable universe is suddenly seen to be unreliable and unpredictable and this causes fear and anxiety which in turn results in the protective emotion of anger.
Create a climate of trustworthiness and dependability:
Be reliable and conscientious in discharging responsibilities and fulfilling tasks or obligations.
Be scrupulous in keeping promises even when it is inconvenient and irksome to do so.
Be consistent, act out of principle not on whim or impulse.
Be meticulous in keeping confidences, but never promise confidentiality without knowing the details first.
(from the introduction chapter)
All relationships of whatever kind consist of four basic elements or factors. They constitute the basic building blocks. Other things maybe be involved, may even be very important, the four, however, are essential. If any of them are neglected or adversely affect the relationship will come under stress. If the failure is not addressed or corrected, the relationship will begin to break down.
1. Love - the most enduring
2. Trust - the most fragile
3. Respect of honour - the most neglected, and
4. Understanding or knowledge - the one that takes the longest.
The relative importance of these elements may differ in different relationships. In the relationship between followers and leaders, trust may be the dominant element, between employers and employee it maybe respect, between members of a family it may be love. Nevertheless all four are essential in every relationship and none can be neglected without serious consequences. Similarly the way in which they are expressed may vary. Love between husband and wife is different than love between friend or between teacher and pupil, but it has to be there, in every relationship.
Furthermore the elements are no substitutes for one another. You cannot compensate for failure in one area by extra attention to another. You cannot say "I don't trust him, but I still love him." Love will not make up for mistrust. You cannot say "I have lost respect for her, but I still really understand her." Understanding will not make up for disrespect. Relationships were made to stand solidly on four legs, if one if weak they will wobble, if two go they will undoubtedly collapse.
(from the chapter on Love)
Love is actually a response that is meant to engage all our faculties. God who is love and therefore the author and beginner of it has laid down the parameters of love very clearly, although I doubt we realise the significance of the statement. To love, God says, is to do it with "all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength." Love that is only a matter of warm feelings is mere sentiment, love that engages only our mind is only admiration, and love that is only a matter of will is charity in its cold, negative sense. We may say then that love has essential attributes of an attitude, that is, there is a cognitive or intellectual element, there is also an emotional or feeling element and there is also a behavioural element. A loving attitude is what counts in relationships.
We have to realise the extreme significance of love God first. It is not the God wants to be king of the castle or top of the popularity poll but it is only when we love God first that we can properly and freely love other people. The reality of our created nature is that we were made for divine love. We have a created need to be loved with a love that is totally dependable and eternally changeless. We have a deep longing for the security of being loved, for ourselves and for no other reason, not for what we can do, or give, or achieve, but just for ourselves. Only God can love like that. Only God loves out of fulness and not out of need. Only He loves us for ourselves alone. Only His love is as changeless as Himself. Unless however, out need for that kind of love is satisfied by God's love we will go looking for it from people, and none of them can provide it, not lover, friend, wife, parent or brother. We lay impossible burdens on marriage, friendships or other relationships to provide up with divine love.
Furthermore we have an instinctive sense of the supreme value of love so that we want to invest our love only on somebody who is totally worthy of it and somebody who will live up to all our ideals as a worthy object. But only one person will never let us down. That is Christ. We can love Him with all out heart, mind, soul, and strength and never be disappointed by flaws in His character or defects in His behaviour. If however we do not invest our love on God we look for standards of performance in return for love, that no human person can possibly attain. We say, or convey, to our husband or our children, "I love you so much you must never disappoint me or let me down." Impossible. They never took on an assignment like that nor do they have any hope of meeting such requirements.
The marvellous thing is that when we love God first and before all, then our need for the divine, unchanging love is satisfied. If it then that our need for a perfect person to love is met and we are set free to five and receive what human love can five and receive - variable, up and down, all-over-the-place, warm, passionate, friendly, affectionate, caring human love and response. Great stuff, but like ourselves, vastly less than perfect.
Care is not a matter of having warm affectionate feelings towards people, it is about attending to their welfare and best interests as faithfully and as consistently as we attend to out own. Mutual care leads to harmony and fruitful interaction, Whenever it is neglected, or we become care-less, the result is strife, contention and inefficiency.
(from the chapter on Trust)
1. Trust is a choice you make.
2. Trust is an attitude. - The things that determine way we live and behave are our attitudes. Attitudes are more than beliefs because beliefs are purely cognitive and people to not generally live by their beliefs. Trust as an attitude has 3 elements: cognitive, emotional, behavioural.
3. Trust is a risk you take.
4. The proof that you trust is that you make no contingency plans in case the other person lets you down.
5. The cost of trust is vulnerability. It is this state of dependence which trust creates that we find the hardest to handle. The heart of our fallenness is our refusal to live in dependence on God. We have deliberately chosen to be independent, to seek self sufficiency, to control our own destiny. Trust strikes at the root of all these.
Since man has refused to accept the risk of depending on God he has to get his thrills in all sorts of inappropriate and harmful ways. We are created, it seems, with two great needs: the need for certainty and the need for uncertainty. These needs are met by a God who is always the same and whose love and word are totally reliable and unchanging. Our need for uncertainty is met by a God who is always doing new things. he is continually calling us out of the familiar into the walk of faith, into a personal relationship trusting dependence. The self sufficiency Adam sought never was and never is possible, so we are forced every day of our lives to choose to trust.
6. To be trusted is a responsibility you must voluntarily accept.
7. The person who would trust must also himself be trustworthy.
8. Accepting trust involves accountability.
9. Trust once broken is very difficult to restore. There is an all-or-nothing nature to trust. You either trust or you don't, you cannot partly trust, or if you do, the uncertainty created causes extreme discomfort. Similarly, when trust is broken it is never partial, if it is broken at all it is totally broken.
When trust is broken our supposedly dependable universe is suddenly seen to be unreliable and unpredictable and this causes fear and anxiety which in turn results in the protective emotion of anger.
Create a climate of trustworthiness and dependability:
Be reliable and conscientious in discharging responsibilities and fulfilling tasks or obligations.
Be scrupulous in keeping promises even when it is inconvenient and irksome to do so.
Be consistent, act out of principle not on whim or impulse.
Be meticulous in keeping confidences, but never promise confidentiality without knowing the details first.
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