Trusting God with Me

“When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown-up we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability. To be alive is to be vulnerable.”
       – Madeleine L'Engle

                                                     

My wife, Anita, placed on our fridge the following quotation from Corrie ten Boom, Dutch author of The Hiding Place:

"Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God."

I always thought I trusted God. But, in reality, it is taking me a lifetime to learn I can trust God enough to let go completely and allow Him to work with me without any restrictions.

My latest lesson in trusting God came a few nights ago when I had a dream.

I dreamed that another man and I were standing in the locomotive of a train. The train was moving swiftly along a railroad track, high in the air on top of a trestle. To my dismay, as I looked ahead I saw that the track and trestle were about to come to an abrupt end midair. I started to panic. I implored the man who was with me to do something. He said not to worry and assured me everything would be okay.

How could everything possibly be okay? We were about to go hurtling off the end of the track to certain death. Yet, when the locomotive passed that point of no return, the train didn't fall; it continued moving steadily forward, somehow supported along its way.

I woke up with the dream still vivid in my mind. I lay there reliving my feelings of vulnerability and fear about what I had thought would end in certain disaster – and my stunned amazement when I found out I had been wrong.

This dream reminded me of yet another dream I had several years ago. In that dream I saw a huge pipe with an enormous spigot at the end from which very small amounts of water were dripping. I was sitting on top of that pipe near the end, next to a large round valve that controlled the flow of water from the spigot.

When I woke up, I thought about the dream and pondered what meaning or message it might have for me.

I thought about the symbolism of water and considered whether the water in my dream might represent the "living water" spoken of in the scriptures. In that context, two things stood out to me: First, that the pipe and spigot were enormous, and only a tiny amount of water was flowing out; and second, that it looked like I could control the valve and the flow of water from the spigot.

This seemed like a wake up call to me: I obviously needed to open up the valve and let the living water flow more freely in my life.

I shared the dream and my interpretation of it with Anita. She was busy doing something else, but with hardly a thought she said something that stopped me cold. She said, “Why don’t you just get rid of the spigot?”

In my original interpretation of the dream, I thought it was my job to regulate the valve that controlled the flow of the water through the pipe and the spigot. I thought I needed to open the valve and allow more water to flow.

But Anita’s question helped me see that the pipe, valve and spigot in my dream were all manmade constructs that controlled and restricted the flow of the water. What would happen if those constructs were removed? What if my job wasn't to control the flow of the water, but to allow it to flow freely and simply receive it?

To the woman of Samaria who came to draw water at Jacob’s well, the Savior said:

“Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again;

“But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life” (John 4:13-14).

I testify that Jesus Christ is the Way. He is the "fountain of living waters" about which the prophets have spoken (Jeremiah 17:13; 1 Nephi 11:25).

Now, what about my other dream of the train hurtling down the track on the trestle that ends in midair?

I have concluded that the two dreams have similar interpretations. The train, like my life, is moving forward rapidly. The track and the trestle, like the pipe, valve and spigot in the other dream, are manmade constructs that control and restrict the direction of my train. The other man in the locomotive is a divine guide who reminds me that it's not my job to control the direction of my life, and who reassures me that God will sustain me as I stop trying to control and willingly go wherever He directs me.

I am grateful for these two dreams—these merciful lessons in the night on trusting God. By contrast, most of my personal curriculum on trust has been in the school of hard knocks, where I have painfully experienced the difference between having a "stiff neck" (as the scriptures describe it) and being meek and submissive, between having a hard heart and a broken heart, and between being prideful—in all its forms—and being humble.

I have learned to love the doctrine Christ taught that "with God all things are possible" (Matthew 19:26; Mark 10:27). For me it is noteworthy that Christ didn't say, "For God all things are possible," but rather, "With God all things are possible."

I have learned, and I am continuing to learn, that for me, together with God, all things are possible. I am learning more and more to trust God and allow Him to make something of me, just as the prophet Jeremiah did (see Jeremiah 18:1-6):

"The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying,

"Arise, and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will cause thee to hear my words.

"Then I went down to the potter’s house, and, behold, he wrought a work on the wheels.

"And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter: so he made it again another vessel, as seemed good to the potter to make it.

"Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying,

"O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the Lord. Behold, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are ye in mine hand, O house of Israel."

We truly are in the hands of Him who made us. We get to choose how much and how quickly we are going to be willing to trust Him and become pliable in His hands.

Image Credit:  (c) Keifer www.fotosearch.com