Naked Trust

As I enter this time of prayer, I repeat the words of Psalm 31:9–10, slowly, several times, making them my prayer to God:

‘Be merciful to me, LORD, for I am in distress;

my eyes grow weak with sorrow, my soul and body with grief.

My life is consumed by anguish and my years by groaning;

my strength fails because of my affliction, and my bones grow weak.’

Pause and repeat

Pause to read the passage 2 Cor. 5:6–9

Brennan Manning writes (in chapter 10) that ‘the way of trust is a movement into obscurity, into the undefined, into ambiguity, not into some pre-determined, clearly delineated plan for the future. The next step discloses itself only out of discernment of God acting in … the present moment. The reality of naked trust is the life of a pilgrim who leaves what is nailed down, obvious and secure, and walks into the unknown without any rational explanation to justify the decision or guarantee the future. Why? Because God has signalled the movement and offered his presence and his promise’*,**

Boredom can be one of the hidden consequences of a long-term problem such as a chronic illness. Instead of living our lives to the full with ‘naked trust’, we merely survive from day to day. Have I become a little risk-averse? What might it look like for me to ‘live by faith, not by sight’ today?

Pause and reflect

I ask the Holy Spirit now to disturb any complacency that may have crept into my life. To take me on new adventures (however small!). To give me the kind of courage that comes from having an eternal perspective.

Pause and pray

As I bring this time with God to a close, I pray a prayer for disruption by M. K. W. Heicher***:

Disturb me, Lord, when I am too well pleased with myself,

When my dreams have come true because I have dreamed too little,

When I arrived safely because I sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb me, Lord, when with the abundance of things I possess

I have lost my thirst for the waters of life;

Having fallen in love with life, I have ceased to dream of eternity

And in my efforts to build a new earth, I have allowed my vision of the new heaven to dim.

Disturb me, Lord, to dare more boldly,

To venture on wider seas where storms will show Your mastery;

Where losing sight of land, I shall find the stars. I ask You to push back the horizons of my hopes; And to push into the future in strength, courage,

hope, and love.

Amen.

*Pete Greig, God on Mute, David C Cook, (Colorado Springs, 2020), p190-91

**Brennan Manning, Ruthless Trust (London: SPCK Publishing, 2002), 13.

***This prayer is often falsely attributed to either Sir Francis Drake or Archbishop Desmond Tutu but seems to have been written by M. K. W. Heicher and first published in The Minister’s Manual, vol. 37 (1962) under the title ‘Stir Us, Oh Lord’. I have personalised it into the first-person voice used elsewhere in this devotional.