What Does It Mean to Trust God? Psalm 23; John 10:11-18

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Charleen Williams
6 years ago
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1 What Does It Mean to Trust God? Psalm 23; John 10:11-18 April 26, 2015 Disability Awareness Sunday By Dr. David B. Freeman, Pastor Weatherly Heights Baptist Church We all have certain filters through which we view the world and life. Gender is one. I am a man, and I see the world through male eyes. I am a white male. Race is another filter through which we view the world. I am a left-handed white male, and believe it or not that too is a filter. At mealtime I look for a seat so I m not bumping elbows with the person seated next to me. You right-handers may not realize this, but the world was made for you, not for the left-handers. We all have these filters: education, social standing, wealth, where you grew up. We re not aware of them most of the time, but they still influence how we see the world and life. Here is another of mine. I have learned that for me it is very powerful. I am the father of an adult child with profound cognitive impairment, what we used to call mental retardation. I am Hannah s father. I help bathe her, feed her, dress her, and medicate her. I take her to doctors appointments, wrangle with the Social Security Administration, and interface with the ARC, the Association of Retarded Citizens, where she receives day services. I sing to Hannah, let her sit in my lap, and hold her hand when she walks. And over the years, I have released many of the hopes and dreams I once had for her. Some of you may not know that at an earlier time in her life Hannah could talk, sing, and walk unassisted. She could feed herself, was potty trained, and enjoyed doodling in coloring books. For the past twenty-plus years, she has been on a slow, steady decline due to intractable seizure activity. She is now non-verbal, in diapers, and is semi-mobile. Her cognitive level has been estimated to be about eighteen months. Our family has observed a part of this good creation that didn t work right. Here s what is supposed to happen. Your child is born, develops normally, goes to school, gets married, and makes you proud. That s how it s supposed to happen. But it doesn t always happen that way. When it doesn t, that experience then becomes one of those filters through which you view the world around you. I approach prayer as the father of a child who has received enormous amounts of prayer but who still cannot feed or bathe her self. I do theology and pastoral care as a father who knows

2 that this world is broken and that we need each other and God. I have no naiveté left. I know it can happen. And I know how disappointing and heart wrenching it can be. As a result, trust is a big deal to me. I peer through this filter when we talk about trust specifically trusting God. It doesn t mean that I don t trust God. It means that I must be painfully honest about what is real and what isn t. I have no patience with glib conversations about trust or superficial theology that does not pass what I call the Hannah test. Some of you know what I mean. Today is Disability Awareness Sunday, and I raise an important question: what does it mean to trust God? It is called the Shepherd s Song: The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. To a large degree we have sentimentalized the Twenty Third Psalm, relegating it to funerals, weddings, and nursing homes. It has been called an American secular icon (William L. Holladay), a piece of religious literature that has made its way into the vernacular. Everyone recognizes the Twenty Third Psalm, but I wonder how many really hear its radical message of trust. According to J. Clifton McCann, professor of biblical interpretation at Eden Seminary in St. Louis, the radical message of Psalm 23 is this: God is the only necessity of life (J. Clinton McCann, Jr., INDB, vol. iv, p. 769). The Lord is my shepherd; therefore, I shall not want. Or as one of my Hebrew professors translated it, When the Lord is my shepherd, that s all I need. Now let s get real honest here. Is that true? Is it religious word-speak, or is it really true that all we need in life is God? I know what I m supposed to say. As a member of the clergy, I m supposed to say, Why, certainly that s all we need. Just trust God, and everything will be okay. However, my experience has taught me that it s just not that simple. Sometimes things aren t okay. Sometimes the diagnosis is horrible. Sometimes a part of our genetic makeup is askew ever so slightly, but the ramifications of that slight variation are awful. Sometimes tragedy strikes. So just what does it mean to trust God? The biblical notion of trust has two equally erroneous extremes. The first extreme is the arrogant assumption that we live independently of God, that we are indeed the captain of our ship and master of our soul. It is the 2

3 belief that God, if God exists, has no bearing upon our lives. Whatever we accomplish is the product of our human will and ingenuity. Some have described this condition as affluenza. Given our affluence, we have plenty to eat and drink, more than adequate housing, and unparalleled security. It begs the question, why do we need God? Why trust God when we re doing so well on our own? Affluenza is a sickness that blinds our hearts to our needs that run deeper than food, drink, and housing. We can have all of those and be bereft of meaning. The psalmist was right, The fool says in his heart, There is no God. The other equally erroneous extreme is the naive assumption that we live completely dependent upon God, as if God did not give us minds and abilities to provide for our needs and free will to order our lives. Do you remember the story about the man who was caught in a flood? He prayed for God to deliver him and then waited for God s help. After a while a boat came by but the man declined the offer of help, saying, God will help me. Some time later, with his conditions becoming more urgent, a helicopter flew over. Again he declined the offer of help saying, God will help me. The man finally drowned wondering why God didn t help him. We don t live independently of God, and we don t live completely dependent upon God either. The writer of the Psalm 23 seems to have understood this balance. He wrote that God was for him like a shepherd, a shepherd who could be trusted. The shepherd would lead him to green pastures, but the shepherd wouldn t eat for him. The shepherd would lead him to still waters, but again the shepherd wouldn t drink the water for him. He bore that responsibility. He wrote that his relationship to the shepherd restored his soul and helped him stay on the right paths. And then, when the end came, when he walked through the valley of the shadow of death, a walk we all will make, he felt confident that he would fear no evil thing. Why? Because of his trust that the One who walked with him through life would walk with him through death, giving him what he needed when he needed it. And finally his trust in God helped him envision a world beyond this one where goodness and mercy reign and where he would dwell in God s house forever. Trust is a balancing act. We must balance relinquishing ourselves to God s care with personal responsibility. It is being completely surrendered to God, while owning our God given capabilities. Trust is neither passive resignation to God nor arrogant disregard of God. Trust is believing that 3

4 when we need daily manna we will have it. It is believing that the awful darkness of crucifixion will be followed by the joyous sunlight of resurrection. Trust is believing in God s way for our life and then doing our best to acquire it. One writer puts it this way, [Trust] is a consistent posture of actively turning our whole being to God in ways which allow God s presence, purpose, and power to be released through our lives into the situations in which we live (M. Robert Mulholland, Jr., Weavings, September/October, 1999, p. 32). The situation in which we live. Our filters. I can say that the situation in which the Freemans live is good today. That doesn t mean that Hannah is seizure free. It doesn t even mean that she is improving; she isn t. What it means is this: we have learned to do what we can do and then release the rest to God. With her physician, we research new treatments. She will soon begin an experimental treatment funded by the FDA. We re hopeful. Others with Hannah s condition have had phenomenal improvement with this treatment. Meanwhile, we continue to pray for her, sing to her, and give her as much tender loving care as we can, believing that she is not only our child; she is a child of God. We do all we can, and then we release her to the Good Shepherd. For us, that is what it means to trust God. Through the years, Kelly and I have had many friends in this community of folks who are rearing children with special needs. Most of them have no naiveté left either. They know what can happen. And they know how disappointing and heart wrenching it can be. Many cope well; some do not. Some marriages are strengthened; some are broken. Many siblings feel a part of the family team; some feel left out. What we all share in common is a filter through which we now view the world and life. To you I give the Shepherd s Song. Psalm 23 is an invitation to trust God to be our Shepherd. God has led us to green pastures in the past. There we have eaten our fill. God has led us to still waters, where we have been satisfied. God has restored our souls. Therefore, we may trust that come what may, even the valley of the shadow of death, that the One who has walked with us will continue to do so. And then one day we will see that world where there are no disabilities, where goodness and mercy reign, and there we will dwell in God s house forever. 4

5 Closing Prayer Good Shepherd, anoint our heads with oil. Cause our cups to overflow. Remind us that goodness and mercy follow us all the days of our life. Teach us how to trust. Amen. 5

Psalm 23:1-6, 2014, 4 th Lent

1 Psalm 23:1-6, 2014, 4 th Lent As I think back over the years I have been preaching I can only think of one time when I may have preached on Psalm 23. It was probably at a service for Laura s National