Touched By Grace

Why Trust in the Lord?

February 13th, 2010 by Fr. Jack Peterson Print This Article Print This Article ·

The prophet Jeremiah exhorts us to trust in the Lord. He says that those who trust in human beings and who seek strength in the flesh are like a barren bush in the desert. In contrast, he says, “Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord. He is like a tree planted beside the waters.”

Why should we place our trust in the Lord?

On one level, it only makes sense. We depend upon God for our very existence. God created us and holds us in existence at every moment of our lives. So, we would not exist if it were not for His creative love, as well as His desire to enter in to a personal relationship with each of us. This means that every one of us is the fruit of an intentional act of God who had an idea of us in His mind from long before He gave us physical life. God made us unique, with our own set of gifts and talents and our own personality, so that we could both be in relation to Him and reflect is divine image in this world. So, we should trust in the Lord because He created us in love.

In addition to blessing us with life and offering us the opportunity to engage Him in a relationship marked by intimacy and friendship, God redeems us from sin and death in Christ. In a powerful demonstration of a lack of gratitude to almighty God for blessing us so abundantly, every one of us have used our God-given freedom to turn our backs on Him, to shun Him and resort to our selfish and sinful ways. We have said “No!” to our heavenly Father, refused to follow the path marked out for us, and deeply hurt Him and others close to us.

Consequently, God has added to the extraordinary goodness of His creative love by showering upon us an even greater blessing, the love which manifests itself as mercy and which brings about reconciliation with Him. “For God so love the world that He sent His only Son, that whoever believes in Him might have eternal life.” We human beings participated in the act of putting His only-begotten Son to death on a cross by our own personal sins. Then, God used that hideous act to bring about our redemption. His goodness, patience and love are beyond our comprehension.

It is the gift of faith in God, the awareness of God’s creative and redemptive love – extended to us as individuals – that leads to trusting in Him and not in the things of this world. The love of God is so real, so powerful and so generous that it transforms our lives. It heals us from sin, from a lack of meaning and direction and from desperation in the face of life’s trials. It brings us life, restores hope and makes us strong in the face of suffering. God becomes a stream of life-giving water in our lives constantly refreshing us and cleansing us. “He (who trusts in the Lord) is like a tree planted beside the waters that stretches out its roots to the stream: it fears not the heat when it comes; its leaves stay green; in the year of drought it shows no distress, but still bears fruit.”

This life of faith, this opportunity to really trust in the Lord is what Jesus is describing when he says that the poor are blessed in this week’s Gospel: Blessed are the poor, for the kingdom of God is yours. It contrasts with putting our trust completely in ourselves, in others or in the things of this world, like money or prestige. Our consumerist culture works very hard every day to convince us that we will find our happiness in the pleasures that luxuries provide such as nicer cars, larger houses and fancier vacations. Putting our trust entirely in these material things or even in people and not God always leaves us empty, unfulfilled and often hurt. No one can take the place that God must have in our lives.

Our Christian faith teaches us that true and lasting joy comes from living in a close union with God, allowing Him to take away our stony hearts and replace them with natural hearts, and learning to love others as He has loved us. It invites us to place all our trust in God, not in the things of this world.

Heavenly Father, pour anew the Holy Spirit into my heart. Stir up in me a profound awareness of your creative and redemptive love. Help me to become poor in spirit, aware that You are the source of my greatest riches. May I learn to turn to You, the font of life, love and meaning, in all of my needs.

Fr. Peterson is Campus Minister at Marymount University in Arlington and director of the Youth Apostles Institute in McLean, Virginia. (This article courtesy of the Arlington Catholic Herald.)




  • noelfitz

    This is a thought provoking article.

    I read “God redeems us from sin and death in Christ” I am not sure what this means. What does “death in Christ mean”?

    I also read “every one of us have used our God-given freedom to turn our backs on Him”. Besides disagreeing with the grammar I have a problem here, as it reminds me of Protestant pessimism. Catholics do not believe in the inherent sinfulness of people.

  • http://www.newcesite.com Mary Kochan

    What you have here, Noel, is a compound object of the preposition “from” — that should solve the first one. As for the second, you are correct about the gammar, but incorrect about the theology. With of course the exception of innocent children, every person has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, as scripture says and also that if we say we have no sin, we are liars.

    I don’t know what you mean by “inherent sinfulness” but the Catechism puts it like this:

    Scripture and the Church’s Tradition continually recall the presence and universality of sin in man’s history: What Revelation makes known to us is confirmed by our own experience. For when man looks into his own heart he finds that he is drawn towards what is wrong and sunk in many evils which cannot come from his good creator. Often refusing to acknowledge God as his source, man has also upset the relationship which should link him to his last end, and at the same time he has broken the right order that should reign within himself as well as between himself and other men and all creatures.

  • noelfitz

    Mary,

    Many thanks for your reply to my queries. I do appreciate that you took the time to answer my concerns. This was a very powerful article with deep theology behind it and merits close examination.

    I am sorry for being confused, it seems fairly common for me recently, but I still am not clear about what “God redeems us from sin and death in Christ” means. I have been thinking about it and I hope that I will be able to grasp the concept. However I read somewhere that one should not allow prepositions to dictate one’s theology.

    I have always claimed that we may disagree on politics, but we agree on our religion. I slightly disagree with you here, but not on major issues, just nit-picking.

    You wrote “[w]ith of course the exception of innocent children, every person has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God,” Due to original sin have innocent children fallen short of the glory of God? Not every person has sinned, as Jesus and Mary are sinless.

    Here in Ireland Protestants are mainly Episcopalians and Presbyterian. The Presbyterians trace back their theology to John Knox and Calvin, and it is really somewhat dismal holding, that man is totally corrupt. Lutherans also have a negative theology, as one of the main concerns of Luther was the sinfulness of all people. I would consider that Catholics claim that by the sin of our first parents our passions incline us to evil, but we are not fully bad, as everything God made is good.

    However these are minor trivial point. The powerful message from this article is, as we heard at Mass today, that we should trust in God.

    Once more can I thank you for CE? I find it a great resource as it challenges me. I look forward to the forum ‘Faith and Life’ coming on stream again.

    Regards,
    NF

  • http://www.newcesite.com Mary Kochan

    Noel, it just means that we are saved from sin in Christ. AND we are saved from death in Christ. Or is it the phrase “in Christ” that bothers you? Its an expression used something like 60 times by St. Paul. Anyway, that’s all for that. I think, as you pointed out, that we have bigger fish to fry around here than prepositions.