Trust without Knowing

A demonstration about to pass our gate in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, February, 1977

“Trust without knowing” is a challenge. That is the definition of trust, as my American friend in Pakistan writes. If we knew how the story turns out, it wouldn’t be trust. Of course, we DO know how the story turns out: the Lord returns to save his people and restore creation to what he originally intended. We just don’t know how our little piece of the story will turn out. That’s where trust comes in. Moment by moment. Day by day. In America or in Pakistan.

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As anti-American protests occur around the world, I have been praying for my friends, and for Christians I don’t know who are in these volatile situations. Life in Ethiopia in the 1970s and Mozambique in the 1980s with their coups and civil wars gave me a taste of what my friends are experiencing. I was alone with my children when we heard the bomb go off at Jan Smuts airport (now Oliver Tambo) in Johannesburg the week Nelson Mandela became South Africa’s first democratically elected president. For all we knew, it was the beginning of a very different kind of power change.

Experiencing violence often hinges on being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but it’s hard to plan for that. A friend in Mozambique stopped going to the beach because of an incident there involving a land mine. There weren’t a lot of places to relax in Maputo and within a few months she was evacuated home with stress.

“Trust without knowing.”

My friend in Pakistan writes that she is waiting for something definitive to happen. Information from the consulate is conflicting, and news reports change by the hour. “I’m prepared to be kidnapped,” she writes, “but I want to be able to choose my outfit that day with the idea that these will be the clothes I wear for the next 10 months!”

“Trust without knowing.”

I used to find the tension growing the longer we went without incident in Maputo. Surely the calm couldn't last forever. My friend agrees while riot police around the church and even on the roof become her new normal.  

“Trust without knowing.”

The grandchild of friends in our church is facing yet another surgery this week.

“Trust without knowing.”

Unemployment figures are still too high.

“Trust without knowing.”

I just clicked send on a manuscript proposal, hoping a small start-up publisher will take a risk on a novel about HIV in South Africa.

“Trust without knowing.”

My friend writes, “I find that my spiritual growth challenge is to live without knowing.” She wants to know what is happening at the consulate right now. Who can blame her? “To trust without knowing (definition of trust!) is the challenge I am facing with the Lord.”

It’s the challenge we all must face: trust without knowing.