It’s a place I’ve been in life, a state of being many have been or can at least empathize with.
“I believe in Adonai,” we sometimes say. “I love him and I believe him. But I’m just finding it hard to trust.”
There are many things that can sap us of our ability to trust. Disappointments are the most common. Perhaps we thought, in our desperation to connect with an attractive member of the opposite gender while we were single, that haShem was “calling us” to coupledom with a certain someone, and when that relationship did not work out as hoped, we felt disappointed, even betrayed.
Or perhaps we grew up believing G-d would let no harm befall us, which worked fine until living through a tragedy like a fire, a devastating storm, a personal assault or whatever other ills tend to befall unsuspecting people in this fallen world. As a result, our trust can be affected in haShem’s ability to keep us safe.
These are deep, personal, painful issues that cannot be resolved in a single blog post, but they are worth exploring in greater detail than a term life insurance policy.
For now, let this be said: the Torah makes little distinction between faith and trust. To some translators, the two terms are interchangeable. Was Noach inspired to build an arc in the middle of nowhere, with no water around, by a distant, mental-state concept like faith? Or did it require an action-inspiring trust?
Food for thought.
Tags: faith, term life insurance, trust