The Archaic Trust

For many of us when we were children, we trusted our parents to protect and love and, to a certain degree, give us the power to make our own choices. We grew up looking to them to meet these needs until we were grown. Some us realized our parents couldn't meet these needs rather early on and stopped looking to them before we left the house.

When we moved out, we learned to fulfill our own needs with this newfound freedom called adulthood. At first that freedom was wonderful and new! We could do as we liked and be in charge of ourselves. 

However, as time passed, we realized that looking out for ourselves wasn't all glorious and exciting. We had to stand up for ourselves, worry about how to keep our jobs and where we should live. We had to make our own schedules and learn to interact with adults who didn't love us like our parents did. All the support and archaic trust was gone, and we began to doubt ourselves and fear the world.

We believed that it was up to us to keep ourselves safe and loved and suffer the weight of our choices. We all believed it without understanding how subtly the lie crept in. If I don't behave a certain way, I won't be loved. If I don't plan ahead and prepare, I won't be safe. If I don't stay strong, I will be walked upon. If I don't speak up and judge correctly or if I do speak up and make a stand, the right things won't happen. 

Brick by brick, we began to transfer onto our backs what we believed our parents carried on their backs. We heaped the bricks higher and higher as we birthed babies and acquired mortgages. We made carts to carry the load. And as we pulled with all our might, we found life a great burden.

How did we get to this place? We are weighed down, bowed low, old of spirit because the cares of life have become too much. We've believed the lie that we are in charge of our own welfare. We thought that if we don't do something, our lives won't be good enough. 

But this isn't true. We lost something back in childhood besides countless hopeful dreams. We lost that archaic trust. We lost it because we failed to transfer that trust from our parents to God. Instead we believed that all this pushing and prodding and duty and stifling of desires was the right thing to do; it was the Christian thing. Isn't this what it means to die to self? To bear these burdens for my spouse and family?

Absolutely not! Perhaps to die to self means to stop thinking myself so necessary and that the outcomes depend on my choices. The more I believe it is all up to me, the more I obsess with measuring my own moral muscle and the less I trust what Christ has already done and is doing right now.

But when I wait and watch to see what He does and is doing, He can then invite me into it, invite me into the dance, so to speak.