In God We Trust

It's more than a motto: it's a calling.

I do not understand God’s plan, but that is not surprising. For if God is beyond all that we can imagine, how can we expect to understand how God is working everything out?

In her book Beyond a Binary God, Episcopal priest Tara Soughers tells the story of raising a child who came out as transgender — and how that experience invited her into a deeper spirituality marked by faith and trust. Recognizing that parenting a trans child would challenge her far beyond her expectations of parenting, she discovered that her reliance upon divine grace became her essential grounding.

I find as a spiritual companion (and for that matter, as someone who has my own spiritual director) that I am often reflecting on what it means to truly, radically, and unreservedly trust God. Not just paying a bit of lipservice, like reading “In God we trust” on our money — but truly surrendering my control needs entirely. If I did understand God’s plan, I would have no need of trust, for I would have everything all figured out. But the God who is beyond my imagination also operates in my life at a level far deeper than my understanding — which is a vitally important point to remember, especially when I am facing challenges, difficulties, disappoingments or setbacks.

There’s this concept of a “fair weather friend” — someone who only wants to spend time with us when life is going great. But as soon as we hit a rough spot, the friend seems to disappear, right when we need them most. Here’s a question: our we “fair weather mystics” which is to say, do we only trust God in those times when our need for God seems to be fairly small? Or can we so radically trust that even when life seems to be going down the proverbial tubes, we rest in the silence and stability of a love we cannot see, imagine, understand, or trust.

In the movie The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, the always-upbeat hotel proprietor, Sonny, is fond of saying “Everything will turn out alright in the end. If things aren’t alright, then it isn’t the end!” May we bring that optimistic hope (and trust) to our contemplative practice, no matter what our external circumstances might be!