Trust The Truth

A Reflection on the First Reading for February 17th, 2019:
Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Jeremiah 17

Thus says the Lord:
“Cursed is the one who trusts in mere mortals
and makes mere flesh their strength,
whose heart turns away from the Lord.
That person shall be like a shrub in the desert,
and shall not see when relief comes,
but shall live in the parched places of the wilderness,
in an uninhabited salt land.

“Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord,
whose trust is the Lord.
That person shall be like a tree planted by water,
sending out its roots by the stream.
It shall not fear when heat comes,
and its leaves shall stay green;
in the year of drought it is not anxious,
and it does not cease to bear fruit.”

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This does not mean that if you put your trust in people God will curse you. The prophet is simply telling us where to put our trust for the best result. If you do not place your trust in the Lord God, your life will look like a wilderness and a parched one at that. You cannot live without water. Look at the world around us, a world that has for the most part become relativistic. Are we all in our happy place?

I spent a third of my life putting my trust in my parents, teachers, friends and government. The next third, I trusted in nobody but myself. Talk about overestimating! The last third, in which I am currently living, I am yearning and learning, praying and leaning into the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, not just believing but trusting He will do exactly what He says He will do and be all He says He is. I either trust Him, the Creator of the Universe, or I don’t. There’s no in between. I knew at some point I would have to jump off my carefully controlled high horse and abandon every part of my mind, body and soul to His care. It didn’t happen overnight, and it’s an ongoing one step forward, two steps back kind-of-thing.

​When we put our trust in mere mortals, we, in effect, tell the Creator of the Universe that He has no power, no relevance, no control. But when bad things happen, whom do we blame? Do we not realize that we are all capable of doing really bad things? Jesus asks us to trust Him so when, not IF, the bad times come, the suffering parts that are inevitable come, we will not fear nor will we be anxious! But He doesn’t just tell us to trust Him, He gives us the tools and resources to do it; His Word, promises, presence, prayer, Eucharist, the community of believers, writers and thinkers who put flesh on the bones of the truth so we can understand and apply it to our lives. And if we “do as He says”, we will see the results in our lives and in the lives of those we love.

"[I]f we “do as He says”, we will see the results in our lives and in the lives of those we love."

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Saint Ignatius, founder of the Jesuits, put together 14 rules for living, the gist of which can be summarized as: 

• Be Aware (of what is spiritually stirring in our hearts and minds)
• Understand (reflect on this and discern what is of God and what isn’t)

• Take Action (accept and live according to what is of God and reject and remove from our lives what is not of God).

(Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life might also be worth reading.)

Jeremiah was not known for his good bedside manner. This is not a guy who would do well at a cocktail party—probably because he had a very bad habit of telling the truth. Thank God for the prophets then and now, who risk everything for the Truth.

​Judy Savoy

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