trust – Recovering the Kingdom

As the theologically-astute preachers’ line goes, “If you want to know what God is like, look at Jesus.” When it comes to the Lord’s prayer, we are not so much looking at as listening to Jesus. He speaks of God as “Our Father”. God is just ‘like’ a Father, God is a Father.

Much has been said about how it is virtually and psychologically impossible for our human experiences of fatherhood (and motherhood) to not colour the way we understand and experience our relationship with our heavenly Father.

For those of us who have the privilege of being parents ourselves, this dynamic divides into two: We experience parenting ‘upwards’ and ‘downwards’. And both experiences colour us.

Positively we may be able to remember wonderful moments where our parents imprinted us with God-like love. And we likewise may have managed to have supremely divine moments where we were conscious of participating in truly loving parenting to a child of our own.

Negatively, however, our ‘upward’ experience of parenting in various ways can be a source of wounding as we recall various times that we were under-parented or over-parented, manipulated or abandoned, spoiled or abused.

Likewise, our ‘downward’ experience of parenting can provide a steady diet of shame as we fail, again and again, to live up to even our own limited standards of what a good parent should look like, and see the disappointment in our child.

In short, upwards wounds damage our trust in our parents, and downward shame damages our trust in ourselves. It is psychologically hard work, shall we say to trust God when our trust in our parents and ourselves is broken. We may scan the Bible and find stories that seem, especially when disconnected from the scriptural metanarrative and interpreted in the counter-narrative of progressive secularism, to show a God acting in ways that are wounding.

Back to Jesus we must go.

Jesus shows us not only how to truly see the loving Fatherhood of God, but also what it looks like when a Son fully trusts and enjoys that fatherhood. Jesus shows us a Father that is just, for sure, but radically merciful and self-sacrificing. A God who can be trusted.

I have concluded that I have more thoughts going around my head than I can properly manage.

And I am learning to be more and more OK with this, since I believe that I was never meant to be the sole Manager of reality as I imagine and perceive and think about it.

Let me elaborate.

I will not bother trying to explore the differences between animal sentience and human consciousness. In brief, I am happy with the concept of the sudden emergence of human consciousness into the world. I’d liken it to the process of starting a fire by rubbing a stick – think of Chuck Noland in Castaway. The fire doesn’t emerge out of thin air, but in the specific context of wood rubbing against wood, friction, heat, flammable materials placed in perfect proximity. Behold – fire!

Humans do this thing called ‘metacognition’ – thinking about thinking.

It is just too much for us to bear.

My tiny, tired mind is filled with thoughts about justice, ethics, politics, philosophy, scripture, religion, the psychology of the guy next to me at the cafe rudely watching videos with the sound loud and proud distracting everyone, renewable energy, slave labour that is also child labour in the cobalt mines of Congo, all of my arrogance and hubris, just how did Palpatine ‘somehow’ return in The Rise of Skywalker, why Star Wars fans can be so fickle, the possibility which is probably more of a certainty that I am over-reacting to what that person said the other day, my deep sadness at the state of my workshop, and the best way to solve the problem of…

You know what I’m talking about.

I am convinced that I am not equipped with the resources to sort out reality. It’s just not my job. Things don’t happen as I imagine that they should – and that’s only talking about my own life, let alone the mysterious fantasy that we call politics and government.

Oh sure, I’m not suggesting that I’m only good for doing one small thing, like woodworking (although what a sweet heaven on earth that would be indeed!). We are, I believe, made to roll up our sleeves and get involved in the world – yes even politics for souls better and braver than I.

But there is a fundamental difference in posture toward life, which I am seeing a bit more clearly.

On the one hand, I can try to have a God-like awareness and judgement over all things, and then get really sad, depressed, blah, or worst of all really angry and enthusiastic about it all not going how I know it should… (And God knows we do this…)

Or on the other hand, I can trust that God understands it all in a way that is at least a half-step ahead of my own reckoning – or more truthfully as far above my own understanding as can be imagined. And from this posture of trust – I can partner with God to do the small or medium or even large things that I am called to do.

In short, I cannot manage all the ideas I am so unfortunately capable of getting myself tied up in knots about.

Thank God that I can hand it all over to the One who can.

Tag: trust

the king and the parent

I cannot run (my) life