Put Down the Shovel

I’m not very good at trusting.

Even in the little things, trust is hard.

The other day my husband discovered that our car had a pulley that was going bad.
He discovered it, researched it, tested it, and finally got the parts.

During the whole process I kept asking questions. What is it again? Have you fixed this type of thing before? Do you know for sure that’s what’s wrong? 

I know very little about how cars work. Yet, I wanted to know exactly how and when this was going to be fixed. I wanted to know the method and understand the timeline.

Why?

Because when we “understand” what is happening, when we have a timeline, it feels easier to manage. To control.

It’s easy to do that same thing I do with my husband with God.

Something comes up, and we start asking God a lot of questions.
And I don’t think it’s wrong to ask questions.
But if you are anything like me, sometimes those questions drift into trying to figure “it” out, whatever it is.

It’s easy to fall into the trap that if we know the plan, THEN we could trust the process.

But that’s kind of backwards, isn’t it?

Because if we knew the plan…
If we knew the timing…
If we knew exactly how everything was going to work out…
Would it really require trust?

Struggling to trust is not a new human experience, and I am not the only one who does it.

When fear creeps in, we turn to control.
We see it on Mount Sinai when the people build the golden calf.
They feared because Moses was taking too long.
They didn’t understand the plan.
So they made their own plan, and built another god to worship.

Meanwhile God had literally weeks earlier parted a sea for them and saved them from the most powerful army in the world. (But that’s neither here nor there…we do it too)

Over and over in the Old Testament when the Israelites were being pressured or attacked and they didn’t understand God’s plan (or didn’t like His plan or timing), they would create another plan, by turning to other powerful countries to “protect” them.

They kept reaching for something they could see.
Something they could understand.
Something they could control.

Today when challenges come up and we don’t know God’s plan or timing, just like in the Bible we often come up with plans to save ourselves.

We feel the need to manage the method and the timeline.

We don’t trust.
We grasp.

We grasp for certainty.
We grasp for timelines.
We grasp for something we can control.

But the very definition of trust is letting go.

If you get to decide the timing and the method…
If you get to know the plan ahead of time.
It wouldn’t be trust.
And I think we would end up arguing with the plan anyways, I know I would.

Trust exists in the gap. 

The area where you don’t get to control the how and when.
The area where you don’t know the plan
But you choose to rest in the One who does know the plan, the timing, and the process.

There is a verse in Jeremiah 2:13  that describes this process to the Israelites because they did the same thing over and over. It says,

“For my people have committed two evils: they have abandoned me, the fountain of living water, and dug themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.”

That verse describes the exchange we constantly make.
The exchange of the golden calf.

Psalm 106:20 says,

“They exchanged their glory for the image of a bull that eats grass.”

They exchanged a fountain or spring of living water.

Think about that.
A spring is a flowing, self-renewing source.
A spring brings life.

It doesn’t need you to fill it.
It doesn’t depend on you to keep it going.

And instead we walk by this spring of life and build cisterns.

Cisterns require digging a hole into a rock to hold water. And it can only hold what is poured into it, and those holes tend to crack and when they do they hold NOTHING.

But I think I understand why we keep choosing the cistern.
The cistern feels manageable.

I dug it.
I can see it.
I can measure how much water is inside it.
I know what I have.

The fountain requires something different from us.
It asks us to trust the source.

We so often put our trust into what we can build and think we can control.
We put our trust into wealth, businesses, and golden calves…
Just like people have been doing forever.

Why? Because it is easier to manage something small and man-made than to rest in Someone we don’t fully understand and who is outside of our control.

We so often believe that God won’t save us, won’t protect us, and won’t provide for us because we don’t get to pick or know the method, the timing, or the plan.

We don’t say that.
We say we trust Him.
But we say we trust Him as we go pick up our shovels to dig a hole to try to protect ourselves.

The truth is, I think we are going to keep reaching for that shovel.
God knows that, and loves us anyway.

So maybe the practice isn’t becoming someone who never reaches for the shovel.
Maybe it’s learning to notice sooner when we’ve picked it up.

It’s putting down the fact that you want to know the plan, and coming back to rest in God.
It’s putting down the fact that you want to know when, and coming back to rest in God.
It’s putting down the need to understand how He is going to do it, and coming back to rest in God.

Trust is a practice. Day in and day out.

We may never stop being tempted to pick up the shovel.
But as we practice in God’s grace, the coming back to the fountain of life becomes quicker. The rest becomes more frequent.

And the greatest thing about the fountain is it’s always been there.

It never moved.
It was always there.

My husband fixed our car just fine. I still don’t understand exactly what he did, and I didn’t get to pick exactly when he did it.

But I know he loves me and will take care of me.
And eventually I realized all my questions weren’t making him any more capable of fixing the car.
My understanding wasn’t required for him to know what he was doing.
My trust didn’t change his ability.
It changed how I rested while he worked.

And I wonder how often the same is true with God.

If you are tired of trying to manage everything.
Put down the shovel.

Come back to the fountain of life waiting for you.
You don’t have to understand the whole plan.
You don’t have to know the timing.
You don’t have to control the method.

Practice leaning all your weight on God instead of trying to fix it all yourself.
The fountain has been there the whole time.