Trust in Uncertainty

You are redeemed by God from slavery into sonship. The freedom of sonship is what God desired the Israelites to experience by "visiting them" to take them out of slavery in Egypt (Exodus 3:16). So often, we reject that freedom and desire to live in our fears and cope with our pain because healing requires exposure to truth and demands change. God cannot heal what we hide. Whenever we hide from those who love us, from God, or even from ourselves, we compensate through "staying busy," self-medicating, or addictions. Meanwhile, our heart screams to God "From the depths I have called to you, O God" (Psalm 130:1).

In response, God says “Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name; you are mine.” (Isaiah 43:1). Confidence in the truth that we are safe and loved can cast out all our fears. So then, when we face our demons, why do we cower and lose peace? Did not God himself take on flesh in the worst of conditions? Was he not born to a young girl uncertain of God's plan, in a manger? Should his light shine any less because of the darkness around him? By no means. John tells us that the "light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it" (John 1:5).

So God says to you, “Be still, and know that I am God” and stand trusting, in awe even when I take you through times of confusion (Psalm 46:10). Mother Mary gives us a model to trust in the midst of our needs when she responds to the uncertainty that the angel brings into her life with the words: “Let it be done to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38).

Perhaps nothing is more frightful than to sit with God in the midst of uncertainty. It's one thing to sing in times of peace, another to sing with joy when being nailed to a cross. Yet, we are commanded not to cast away our joy and confidence in the Lord (Hebrews 10:35-36). We are commanded to love even in the face of our struggles (John 13:34). We too, like Mary, are called to accept our crosses as the way to trust even in the midst of our needs and to say to God what Jesus said in the midst of his agony, “not my will, but yours be done” (Luke 22:42).