Daily Devotion - Wednesday, February 24

Trusting is Difficult

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord.”
--The prophet Isaiah, 55:8

This week we are dealing with the subject of trust. The capacity for trusting can easily erode right before our eyes. With uncertainty surrounding so many public and private arenas, the heart song of many people these days sings the question, “In whom shall we trust?”

Our currency, both coin and paper, proclaim “In God we trust.” This is a bold, bold statement; a statement we often struggle to reflect in daily living. Today’s text serves to remind us that the thoughts and ways of the Holy are far different than our thoughts and ways. To trust God means accepting friendship with one radically different from us and, at best, mysterious. One writer calls it “naked commitment to live with God’s strangeness.”

How is your trust right now? The constant battle goes on and on and on, doesn’t it? We close today with a little poetic offering by Neva Perdue who penned these words while in a hospital bed and titled them “At Dark’s Edge.”

“and if I
should slip away
a quiet exhalation in time
a moment welling up on the edge of always
trickling without sound or regret
into the darkness of new birth

and if I
let go of your hand
forsaking the tenderness of flesh and eye
for uncharted embrace

will you smile?”

--Ben Keckler
02.24.10