Will You Trust Me?

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight

(Proverbs 3:5-6)

There hangs in our home a picture that holds a great deal of meaning for me for it takes me back to a special part of my childhood.  On first glance it appears to be a rather simple picture, but on closer inspection, it speaks volumes.

Done in soft pastels of blue, gray and cream, it features a little girl in a rope swing, sailing through the air with total abandonment.  She appears not to have a care in the world.  That’s all I noticed the first time I saw it.  I loved it immediately because it took me back to the many hours, as a little girl, I spent in just such a swing.

I loved to pump until I was going as high as possible, then lean back in a reclining position, and gaze up into the vastness of the sky.  It was the closest thing I knew to flying.  There I was just me and the sky…and God.  Even as a little child, I sensed His presence, and at times like that, I felt that no one existed except Him and me.  I often made up little songs and poems to tell Him how much I loved Him.

While memories along those lines were evoked by the picture, on closer inspection I noticed something I had failed to see at first.  The ropes of the swing that held the little girl were not attached to a tree branch as my swing had been.  Instead, a large masculine looking hand, reaching down from the corner of the picture, held her swing.  A message in small script near the opposite corner read, “Will you trust Me?”

God seemed to be asking me, “If you could trust yourself to something that was created, can you not trust yourself to the Creator? If you were so able to trust your weight to the board, the rope, and the branch of the tree, can you not trust the weight of life’s burdens to My hands?  Can you not, with childlike abandonment, lift you mind and heart to Me and let Me fill you once again with the wonder, joy and contentment you experienced in My presence as a child?”

The questions seemed almost audible, and I was moved to respond.  “Yes, Lord, I will leave it all to You for it is not my strength but my trust that You require.  It is by Your power, not mine, that I am kept.  And it is because of Your loving care I am able to experience freedom of body, mind, and emotions. But the choice is mine, isn’t it Lord?”

Did I spend my time as a little girl checking out the condition of the board, the rope, the branch or the tree, cringing with fear at every creak, lest one of them failed under my weight?  No, innocent of the mechanic involved, I trusted myself to the swing and enjoyed the flight.

 In such total abandonment, we are asked to trust our Heavenly Father and not be afraid of the dangers of life.  While any number of things could have made my swing unsafe, we are never in danger of God failing to uphold us.

Weeks after I hung the picture, I was surprised to notice, in very light script across the bottom, the Bible verse that seems to say it all:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding

(Proverbs 3:5) 

Lord, Help me trust it all to You just as I did my swing;

Every single care I have in faith and trust to bring;

To place it all within Your hand and then enjoy the flight, 

Trusting that You’ll work things out when everything is right.