The Trust Game

It's a game that I have been playing for over 35 years.
I played it again yesterday as I was teaching Sunday School to six fourth and fifth graders.
It's rather simple to play.
No game pieces are needed.
No computer console attached to your TV is required.
It actually involves person to person interactive skills!!
Quite the novelty in the game market today...

Here are the very complex rules of the game...
Person B stands behind Person A.
Person A becomes stiff as a board with his or her hands folded across their chest.
Person A then falls backward.
Person B catches them.

The difficult part of the game is trusting that the person behind you will catch you before you fall flat on your back on the ground.

Yesterday, only one out of the six kids fell backwards without trying to catch themselves by moving one of their feet back to stabilize them. I thought I was pretty trustworthy. Evidently weighing close to three times the weight of the kids did not build enough confidence in my trustworthiness.

My iWitness...

Two key components are at play in the Trust Game.

1. The act of "trust" in Person A to fall backwards and be caught.
2. The "trustworthiness" of Person B to be trusted to catch Person A.

In Abraham and Sarah we find both of these components in play in regards to their faith and trust.

Listen to how the author of the book of Hebrews describes Abraham and Sarah...

"By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. ⁹ By faith he went to live in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. ¹⁰ For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. ¹¹ By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised. ¹² Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore." (Hebrews 11. 8-12)

Abraham began moving to a place where he did not know where he was going.
I have moved seven times to different parts of the country each time "not knowing where I was going."
And then there is Sarah... she conceived a son long past the time when other women were having children all because "she considered him faithful who had promised."
Do we consider "Him faithful who had promised"?
What keeps us from trusting God?

What keeps us from "moving" to the unknown places, out of our "comfort zone" to experience the fullness of God's promises and plans?
Why are we reticent to believe that that which God may be calling us to do and be just might effect the whole course of the universe "as many as the stars of heaven and as many as the innumerable grains of sand by the seashore?"

The Trust Game...
I know that as Person B, God is trustworthy.
But as for me...
being Person A, sometimes I just can't seem to fall backwards into His awaiting arms...

And that's my iWitness...
Laugh often and Fear not!
David!