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Monday, October 24, 2011

Truth and Trust

            My favorite TV show is a British made science fiction program called “Doctor Who”.  The show has run in Britain for many, many years.  The main character is called “the Doctor”, and he’s a time lord.  This means he can travel anywhere in space and time.  It also means that he doesn’t die, he simply “regenerates”, which has allowed several different actors to play the Doctor over the years.  The show is available on many public broadcasting stations (although, regrettably, not the ones in South Dakota) and is also available on BBC America.
            The Doctor always has one or two people with him who are not time lords, but are simply ordinary people.  This means that, as they travel to different worlds and battle different monsters, the people traveling with the Doctor often have no idea what’s going on unless the Doctor explains it to them.  Sometimes he does, but often he doesn’t.  He rarely outright lies to them, but he often tells them far less than the whole truth.
            In an episode I saw recently, the Doctor and his friend Amy were in trouble, as they usually are.  The Doctor turned to his friend and said quietly, “Amy, I need you to trust me.”  Amy responded by saying, “But you don’t always tell me the truth.”  To which the Doctor replied, “If I always told you the truth, I wouldn’t need you to trust me.”
            While it’s not a perfect analogy, it struck me that our relationship with God is a little like that.  As we go through life, we often have no idea what’s going on.  We’d like God to tell us.  Sometimes God does, but often, God doesn’t.  God does not outright lie to us, of course, but God generally does not reveal the whole truth to us, either.
            There are any number of things I’d like to know.  Some of them are silly:  “Who’s going to win the Super Bowl?”  “Will Susan Lucci be in the online version of All My Children?”  Some of them are personal:  “How long will we be in the Wheatland Parish?”  “How long will my parents stay in relatively good health?”  Some of them have to do with the world:  “Will the economy recover soon?”  “Will more people live in freedom?”  Some of them, of course, have to do with the eternal:  “What’s heaven really like?”  “What is life really all about?”
            So many questions, and of course so many more that we could ask.  We’d like God to give us the answers, but God usually does not do that.  Instead, God turns to us and quietly says, “You need to trust me.”  We respond, “But you don’t tell us all of the truth.”  To which God says, “If I told you all of the truth, you wouldn’t need to trust me.”
            God does not tell us all of the truth, probably because we couldn’t understand the whole truth if it was told to us.  God is, however, always worthy of our trust.  If we simply trust God, even when we’re in trouble, God will be there for us.  God is watching over us, and ultimately, God is always in control.

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