All along here at True North I've been talking about

protect, trust, hope, persevere ... love

... and I have been especially attentive to "trust" ... because trust is difficult ... as up we grow, down we forget ... the Bible encourages me to walk towards God with the innocence of a child ... trusting. But, probably like everyone else on the planet, life has taught me not to trust.

I am a little afraid to say it out loud (because I know it'll be put to the test ... there is always a test at the pause of each lesson, including life lessons ... I guess that's the only way to demonstrate to one's heart and soul that the lesson has been learned and now it is okay to move forward in to the deeper waters in that river we call life)... I do that all the time, start a sentence then enhance the incomplete thought in parentheses ... let's try again. I am afraid to say I feel pretty good about trust. I thought it was a huge word ... and it is, but it's also little words. I trust you with my soul ... huge. I trust you with my camera ... little. I trust you not to lie to me ... huge. I trust you not to lie to me about that ... tiny. Trust. One size does not fit all.


So ... that's great, really. And I am sure there is more work to be done there, but ... I've come a long ways there. Yesterday, I realised that I've sorta given up hope on several fronts in my life. In my other journal ... because a journal is pretty much what True North is ... I wrote that old isn't about your body aging, it's about losing hope. That's what I think. Now, I am at a time, in my life,when many of my acquaintances are shifting gears towards retirement ... early retirement was the big yuppie dream when I came of age in the avaricious 80's. The idea was "who ever has the most toys wins ... mark, set, go!" I don't understand how it might feel to wake up in the morning and just do that day. I have organized my life with ... the plan ... pursuit of accomplishing a goal ... maybe several concurrent goals ... running through ringing as many shiny bells as possible (just good goals ... no trampling the less able ... maybe lending a hand as one sees fit ... no gloating from the top tier ... you know, achieve, but as a good citizen, grateful for the head start that life dealt me/you). That notion is what makes waiting pretty strenuous ... as I wait on this, what should I be doing about that? Even if it's just enjoying ... I want real cream in my coffee? That's gonna cost me an hours worth of cardio ... not yesterday's walk, today's walk. I call it self discipline. Well, I am rambling away from what I wanted to note today.

Hope.

Hope doesn't seem like that big a deal. Maybe I just don't quite get it. I mean, in that string of words ... protect,trust,hope,persevere...love ... doesn't hope seem to stand away from the others? The other words seem to have actions that I can see wrapped around them. I see a protect clearly ... something stronger, more able, protects something vulnerable. Trust ... a handshake or a hand clasp as one binds themselves to another in support of a common good ... that's just a tiny illustration of trust, I know ... but again, like protect, I can see an image there of what trust might look like. Persevere ... too easy to see ... one is either in the game, or on the bench/sidelines. Persevere, you're either in or you're out ... breaks are okay as long as they are about resetting to hit it again! ... it's an attitude. Love ... well, love is accompanied by actions ... we all know what love looks like ... hmmm ... that may be too encompassing, because I sure have seen hateful acts labeled "love" ... and it's also true that love is expressed in personalized ways ... love is active though. I can see love even if I am unable to interpret all loving acts as love. Hope though ... well what does hope look like? Hope seems to be an expectation, rather then an activity. I hope my child will catch the bus to school today. He waits at the appropriate place, at the appropriate time, hoping that the bus will arrive. I blow him a kiss and wave goodbye, hoping that the bus ride goes as expected ... as hoped for. Hope is a little fuzzy for me as words go ... hope is a bit esoteric for me.
I've been hoping to win the lottery. I can't hope any harder to win the lottery then I already do ... it would leapfrog me to a huge pile of toys ... I would like that quite a bit I think ... so far, hope hasn't panned out there ... now I very seldom put a dollar bill out there in support of that particular hope. The Bible expresses hope as the hope of my/yours/our salvation ... as faith's little sister sorta. Hope has been under-rated by me ... practically unattended to until just recently.
Now I am seeing faith and hope sort of like a slinky ... that toy that is a coil of wire that cartwheels over itself
faith
----hope
---------faith
-------------hope
------------------faith
----------------------... on it's way to love.

Now the three of these remain ... faith, hope, love.
Hope is a step of faith ... faith is a demonstration of hope ...

as I journey towards the realization of God's love for me. Is that it?
I'm thinking about it. I'm thinking about it within the context that we are all in this together ... it's an individuals journey, but we have buddies we walk along side of as we journey.

Those dreams I had back in July last year ... those dreams have informed me. On a personal level, those dreams have illustrated that not only do I have buddies along the way ... buddies whom I may help, buddies who offer to help me ... but also that God has the big picture view ... and that He is the go to guy as far as offering real help along the journey. It's too personal to share in a wide open way like a blog, but ... well, what the Bible says about God caring for us ... I doubted it. It was hard for me to believe it, because I can't see Him. I don't doubt that there is a creator ... I am willing to believe (most of ... not that I don't want to believe all ...just a bit unable) the Word of God ... grateful for the footholds in life where I feel Him nearer ... but ... well ... wouldn't it be nice if he showed up with some skin on so I could see him occasionally?

I still haven't seen Him ... pretty sure that would scare me to death anyway ... but I have seen where He's been. I asked Him to show up and do His best work ... because I was in a place where I had nothing left to work with of my own. It was like when I first started learning to land an airplane ... I didn't know how to ... at all. Landing had to be the flight instructor's job. Trusting him was pretty easy, because that was all I had to work with towards getting the plane safely on the ground ... my life was counting on him to land well ... then I got to where I could land the plane and I stopped trusting him for that and ... started trusting myself. (Truth is, I actually started critiquing his landings ... lol ... audacious? ... come on you do it too!) Trust isn't as simple as one might wish when there is any level of competency. All this stuff is pretty interwoven and I bet God spends at least as much time laughing as He does crying as he watches our stories unfold.

Well ... I have realized that hope is ... maybe ... more important then I'd realized. I have given up hope in some important areas of my life ... my hope is waning in some other areas. Hopeless ... the very life seeps out and hopeless is what's found at the bottom. Then what? Seems like the only thing left is what God might want to do ... finally.

I think He's a pretty good pilot. (smile) I think He knows the destination ... the mission ... the challenges to be answered along the way ... I think He's up for it. I don't even have to hope He shows up ... I'm starting to see that He's been waiting for me.