More Trust May Lead To Added Gratefulness

The Sandpoint Post Office parking lot seemed like a peculiar place for me to think about Thanksgiving.

And Thanksgiving was a peculiar holiday for me to think about as I watched a few postal patrons in our small town lock their cars just for a 30-second run inside to check their mailboxes.

But at that moment I was mentally connecting Thanksgiving and trust.

Now, even on second and third thoughts, giving thanks and trusting others connect pretty well. The flip side also has an unfortunate logic: Distrusting others gets in the way of giving thanks.

Meanwhile, back at the parking lot: For many years, my silent wonderings have occasionally focused on the people who lock their cars for a 30-second dash to pick up their mail, then on people like me who actually leave their cars idling during that quick trip to the mailbox.

Am I foolishly trusting no one will steal my car? Are they foolishly paranoid by locking their cars?

“I don’t know” is my answer to both questions. I do know that the other day those questions invited me to explore the possible connection between “trust” and “giving thanks,” particularly because of next Thursday.

My search took me to my church hymnal. I didn’t find any direct tie between trust and thanksgiving in the hymn titles. But I did find a notion worth exploring in a beautiful newer hymn I thoroughly enjoy, “What Gift Can We Bring” by Jane Marshall.

Here is the third verse:

Give thanks for tomorrow, full of surprises,

For knowing whatever tomorrow may bring,

The Word is our promise always, forever,

We rest in God’s keeping and live in God’s love.

It isn’t a stretch for me to replace “we rest in God’s keeping …” with “we trust in God’s keeping. …” Neither has it ever been a stretch for me to project my ever-expanding trust in God onto the trust I am willing to invest in other people. Not every person, mind you, but most.

That’s why I let my car idle in the post office parking lot.

The fact of the matter is that I learned to trust people long before I learned to trust God. As a baby I only knew my mother and father, not God (at least directly).

They taught me to trust them and other people.

When God became a conceptual reality to me, I learned that trust originated with God, not my parents. I’m very thankful that, from birth, I’ve been able to rest/trust in God’s keeping and, therefore, live in God’s love.

The more I reflect upon it, connecting trust and gratitude makes more and more sense to me. The measure of trust I have in God, in particular people and in people generally, may even directly impact the measure of gratitude I have for God, for particular people and for people in general.

I believe this knowing full well how much mistrust there is in our communities, our country, our world.

How much trust was demonstrated by your vote or non-vote in the general election? See what I mean?

Our mistrust is too often reinforced whenever we read a newspaper or watch TV news.

Mistrust is often too close to us in our jobs, our volunteer experiences and our own families. It would be so easy to launch into a long litany of broken promises, violated relationships, shattered dreams.

So if you want to do that, don’t let me stop you.

I choose to simply acknowledge that mistrust does lurk beneath the surface of too many relationships. But I also affirm that we don’t have to live on the surface or just below the surface.

You know where I mean. It’s where we’re prone to play nicey-nice while our distrust festers uncontrolled, then poisons our ability to know what God really wants for us.

I’m reminded of a phrase in the prayer of humble access from the service of Holy Communion my denomination used many years ago: “We are not worthy so much as to gather up the crumbs under thy table.” Deep down we feel like that sometimes, perhaps quite often.

Yet the prayer continues like this: “But thou art the same Lord, whose property is always to have mercy.” And not just during a church ritual, either.

You see, God hasn’t invited us to eat by ourselves on the floor under the actual Thanksgiving table. With an incredibly radical sense of hospitality, God has set a place for us at the table!

It isn’t because of what we have, or have done, or haven’t done. We are welcome simply because God is grateful for us as we are.

God may not want us to stay as we are, but God does accept as we are.

That is usually very hard to believe. But that’s why God’s hospitality is so deep-down radical. Please trust that!

For reasons usually well beyond our comprehension, God trusts us and is thankful for us. We may learn trust and gratitude most directly from other people, but those acts of faith ultimately come from God.

Wherever you find yourself on Thanksgiving Day, allow me to remind you of God’s radical hospitality. You are welcomed to sit and eat with God wherever you might be.

Don’t trust just me on this. Trust others and trust God.

If you do, you may have more to be thankful for than you ever imagined on Thanksgiving Day.

xxxx

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Paul Graves The Spokesman-Review