TRUST, THE ONLY PATH TO TRUTH, IS DANGEROUS (SEPTEMBER 11)

"Commit your way to the Lord" (Psalm 37:5).

IN OUR SECULAR WORK AS WELL AS OUR SPIRITUAL JOURNEY, WE FIND THAT “REWARDS REQUIRE COMMITMENT.” If we are so averse to risk that we won’t trust anything enough to commit ourselves to it, we will, wanting mainly to avoid being wrong, never know the joy that could have been ours if the commitment was right. Nothing good comes from the commitment-free life. Commitments are scary, to be sure, but as the saying goes, he who hesitates is lost.

We might say, “Well, yes, commitments are necessary, but before we make them, we need to make absolutely sure there is no possibility of our being wrong.” In the real world, however, there are no such scenarios. We never have enough information to be absolutely certain about our decisions, and even if we did, that kind of decision-making would not require any faith. For faith to be faith, there must be some risk, some element of uncertainty.

Obviously, we need to be careful in our commitments. Even if complete information is not available, we need to gather all the evidence we can, so that our faith is not blind faith but serious trust based upon consideration of the best information we could get.

But to return to our main point, all the good things in life require committing ourselves to them. Hesitancy, doubt, and tentativeness will cut the very heart out of our discipleship to Christ. Distrusting God, we will never get the answers to our questions.

In her book on the practice of mindfulness, Kim Davies says, “The foundation of any practice is a certain level of commitment: you have to not only make a clear decision to try mindfulness but also to maintain your practice and awareness.” I agree. And when it comes to godliness, a practice much higher than mindfulness, the principle of “rewards require commitment” is even more true.

David said in Psalm 37:5, “Commit your way to the Lord.” This means counting the cost, accepting the risk, and putting our trust in God. It also means binding ourselves resolutely to the practice of godliness. Not only is this the right thing to do, but it is, in the end, the only way to know if the Lord’s way is good. The path to truth requires trust — the kind of trust that knows what commitment is.

"There is no discovery of the truth of Christ's teaching, no unanswerable inward endorsement of it, without committing oneself to his way of life" (J. B. Phillips).