Grounded Trust

I spent many years studying, learning and teaching the Bible. For most of those years, I was pretty dogmatic about my beliefs and how I held what I thought I knew from the Bible. I have moved away from that dogmatism; I no longer hold the Bible as my "only rule for faith and practice." But I do hold it as an important spiritual text, and I honor it's depth, tradition, and richness.

After leaving the ministry as I knew it, there were three verses that stayed with me and  provided a thread of faith and strength along the path toward finding my own spirituality, my own truth. The first one is:

Proverbs 3:5 & 6*
Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.
In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.

Somehow in all my questioning, I always knew that there was something beyond what I knew. Something kind, loving, benevolent. Parts of what I "knew" resembled that Something. Parts of what I "knew" didn't. I had to untangle that labyrinth by simply putting one foot in front of the other, and doing it enough times to find the clearing.

Trust requires vulnerability. But there are different forms of trust. There is dogmatic trust, where no matter what, I hang on to what I have, not allowing the wisdom of emotion and common sense to inform me. Close to that is blind trust, where I scramble to hold on to anything that presents itself as hopeful, with no discernment or introspective consideration. Then there is grounded trust, where I look within; I experience fully the questions, the fear, the doubt; I consider options or the lack of them; I observe my thinking, my tendencies. And then I choose to trust. Trust is given. Dogmatic trust and blind trust attempt to avoid the feeling of being vulnerable; grounded trust embraces it through choice.

I believe that what I have described as "grounded trust" is the essence of "acknowledging him in all my ways." There is a deep comfort in choosing to acknowledge The Great One, our Source, in everything. Whether I am at work, at home, with friends or alone, I can find that presence in a very real way if I but look, stay present and allow life to be what it is.




* I quote from the King James Version. This is the text that I learned and studied so deeply. I still love its language. Other versions may work better for you. The KJV throughout uses the masculine pronoun when referring to God. I do not subscribe to this notion. For me, the God of the Bible is the Great Mother, Father, Spirit and Source.