Daily Devotion for Saturday, March 31, 2012

Today's Scripture Reading: Mark 10:32-34, 46-52

Key Verse for Today: Mark 10:50, "Throwing his coat to the side, he jumped up and came to Jesus."


What does it mean to trust?  Bartimaeus certainly trusted Jesus.  Today's verse stood out to me because this blind man threw his coat to the side.  This seems like kind of reckless behavior for someone who is blind.

Healing of a Blind Man by Brian Jekel
brianjekelfineart.com

Wouldn't you keep your possessions about you so that you could find them again?  I certainly don't think you would throw them to the side.

Unless you expected to see again.

That's some pretty bold trust going on in this story.  I wonder, "when have I ever trusted like that?"

When I wrote about my own mystical experience of God a couple of days ago, it was certainly profound.  It made a major impact upon my life. But as wonderful as it was, doubt still sometimes creeps in.

Did it really happen like that?

Was it God or was it my own longing for God that effected my senses like that?

These kinds of questions are fairly natural for anyone raised in the latter part of the 20th century.  We are taught to question which is helpful for scientific inquiry.  But it may get in the way when it comes to trust.

There were times when I sought out a similar experience.  I would hike and pray and meditate at Camp Egan in the years to come.  Once, while I was sitting under a small overhang, my prayers were cut short by some baby armadillos that were sniffing at me as their heads bobbed up and down.  I grinned at them and they eventually went back into their den.

Armadillos don't see very well.  Kind of like Bartimaeus.

But they trusted their smell to know that I wasn't a normal part of their world.

I realized that my desire for a repeat experience was simply a lack of trust.  The experiences we have may be varied and they don't have to be any less wonderful for being different.

Maybe coming to this understanding is a kind of trust.

I've thrown my need for an exact recurrence to the side like Bartimaeus threw his coat.

What is it that you need to cast aside before approaching Jesus?

Breath Prayer: Holy God, let me trust you.

The more we know about God's creation, the more we know about God.