Trust Fall
When I was a teenager, I attended a church youth group meeting on Wednesday nights. We had Bible study and fellowship, and one particular evening I remember a game we played called “Trust Fall.” Have you ever played this game? My youth group director explained that we need to be able to trust God to catch us. To demonstrate, we each had to stand in front of our peers, one at a time, and trust the others to catch us as we fell backwards. I have to tell you, it was terrifying for me. I knew these kids. They weren’t always nice or trustworthy. But, I didn’t want to look bad in front of the others, so I took the chance and I fell backwards. They did catch me. Whew. I wish I had been able to put together the lesson from that day with trust in God, but I didn’t. Trust is something much deeper than just an intellectual knowing of facts. I knew the kids in that youth group would probably catch me. They caught all the rest of the kids that went before me. We had supervision to ensure nobody would be hurt. So I had an intellectual knowledge that I was most likely safe to fall. But, it did not change the fact that I just didn’t trust them, which is what made it scary. It wasn’t until years later, that I realized everything with God is a “Trust Fall.”
I love the faith chapter in Hebrews. If you ever want to know what it looks like to completely trust God, this chapter is a good summary of some of the best examples of faith in the Bible. Real faith is to trust in God. We trust He is who He says He is and that He will do what He says He will do. “And without faith it is impossible to please God. For anyone who approaches Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.” (Hebrews 11:6) The people in this chapter were sometimes asked to do very hard things for God, sometimes things that sounded impossible, crazy, things that no one would ever dare to do unless they truly believed God was speaking to them. I am thinking about the next verse, Hebrews 11:7, and how I have mad respect for Noah and his family. Did you know it took him about 100 years to build that ark? I cannot imagine being Noah, never having seen rain, building an ark, a giant boat, with no body of water around. No indication other than God’s Word that it was true. Building, building, building, day after day. Having to explain to the other people why he was building it. Being laughed at and mocked. Maybe his family questioned his leadership at some point. Who knows? It couldn’t have been easy. A ship big enough to carry him, his family, all their food, and all the animals and their food. Not to mention, how in the world would he ever catch all those animals? How could they live in peace on that boat? Some of the animals were carnivores… these are all questions that would have plagued me with worry. I may have started to question my sanity after a few years. Truly. In fact, I know I would have quit…UNLESS…I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that I had heard from God and I knew Him well enough to know He was trustworthy. I would have needed Him to reassure me regularly, to encourage me to keep going. I can’t say what or how many times Noah heard from God, but I know He convinced him of the truth for him to keep building that thing for 100 years. God would have had to convince his wife and children to trust in his leadership, too.
This is one of those things I have really struggled with over the years to accept. We all have things in God’s Word that are hard for us to believe, because truthfully, we really don’t want to. It would require some real change in our lives, our thinking, and our hearts. Trusting anyone is very difficult for me. Trusting God is no different. Believing I had to work to earn my salvation was easy. Believing I had to be a good person for God to accept me and save me was easy. Really, I was trusting in myself and my own abilities. That I can control. Trusting Him to do it without my assistance in any way…well that was near impossible for me. I didn’t have a single example in my life that suggested that I could fully count on anyone to always be there. I had a very good Mom, and grandparents, but they weren’t perfect. My Dad was in and out of my life. We didn’t have a bad relationship, we didn’t have much of a relationship at all. How could I trust God to be there? I can’t even see Him. I question if I’m actually hearing from Him sometimes. And some of the things He asks of me feel completely impossible. Like trust.
Marriage, for one. Marriage the way God intended it to be has been a very difficult pill to swallow. Not because I don’t want to do things God’s way, I know my family will be blessed if I do. But the crux of the matter is trust. Not only does God ask me as a woman to completely trust Him, but He is asking me to trust that He is leading my husband, and I am to follow this man, who I love, but who I know is not perfect and he makes mistakes. He’s human, after all. Salvation was a bit easier. It took time, getting to know Jesus, in prayer and reading the Word, seeing Him at work in my life when He answered my prayers. Yes it took a lot of time, but over the years I’d had enough personal experience with Him to know that He was real and trustworthy. So the day I was faced with the truth about salvation, that we cannot earn it, that it was freely given by God, that we cannot lose it, all I had to do was ask God for the truth about it. I knew He would answer that prayer, and I could trust His answer. But this thing with my husband was much more difficult. It felt unfair. Men only have to follow Jesus. Well, that’s easy. You can trust Jesus. He’s perfect! You don’t have to worry about Him making a wrong decision causing harm to you or your children. But asking me to trust an imperfect human man? Trust him enough to respect his authority over my family? Well, that may be asking too much Lord. After all, my Dad didn’t bother to stick around to provide for me and my sister. How do I know this man won’t bail on me too? Love him. Yes. Support him. Sure. Follow him the way I’d follow Jesus? Forget about it. I just can’t.
Get Kat’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
I know that I’m not the only woman who struggles with this thing. We struggle to keep control of an area of our lives in order to feel safe, but ladies, we are just as prone to make bad decisions as our imperfect husbands are. Truthfully, in my opinion, neither spouse should be in charge. I told God that. Probably in anger. None of us are righteous enough to deserve that kind of authority over another. The whole thing made me feel righteous anger. I had lived the consequences of one man’s selfishness. I was not about to agree to it again. I bet a lot of you feel the same way. I bet a lot of you have deep anger for things in your past and the audacity of a God that would ask you to trust a man, knowing what you have been through. Because God knows. He was there. He saw everything. He knows your pain and struggle. Knowing that He knew, and still asked this level of obedience of me anyway, was just maddening! I do know this, though, I cannot pick and choose which parts of God I believe and just ignore the rest of Him. Either He is God, or He is not. He is true, or He is a lie. He is faithful, or He is not. I have to pick one or the other. I can be mad at Him, I can be perplexed at His requirements, I can question Him. But what I cannot do is pick Him apart. He is Who He is. So what to do? I decided to pray.
OK, Lord. I acknowledge that I don’t know everything, I am not perfect, neither is my husband. Please help me to understand how to do this marriage thing the right way, and please help me to trust You. I am having trouble falling, Jesus. I am afraid You won’t catch me. I know it’s silly, considering all we’ve been through together, all the times You have answered my prayers and all the times You surprised me with last minute rescues and unexpected joy in very difficult circumstances. Please show me the truth about what You are expecting out of me Lord, and help me to believe You. I just can’t do it on my own. In Jesus’ Name I ask. AMEN
I said a prayer, something like this, and I began to search the Word for exact instructions for how to do marriage the way God expects us to. I wanted to do things God’s way. The problem is, just like any other subject preached about, there are conflicting opinions on what the scripture actually means. I’ve heard the extremes…women are under the authority of men and they have to do what their man says regardless of what it is. They are to trust God has them and do what they are told. Period. Then the other side…that kind of thinking is old fashioned. Women and men are equal in the Lord. We should give them equal authority in the church. They can work out on their own how they want to do things at home. I knew that both of these views could not be true, so which one was it? Or were they both wrong? Or did they both have parts wrong and parts right? I decided to go to the Word of God to get my answers. And, Oh baby…were there answers! Praise God! And what I discovered was this was no different than any other thing God asks us to do. It is a “Trust Fall.”
To be continued…
All scripture taken from the Berean Standard Bible
