Trust...

What's very interesting to me about a life in the arts and/or as a preacher/communicator is the degree to which trust is, truly, your stock in trade.

If you're a preacher, people trust you to deliver something that's true, faithful to Scripture, theologically sound, historically grounded and currently relevant to them and their cultural context.  Ultimately, the people listening to you 'trust' that you've (and this might be a bit esoteric for some of you...) 'heard from God', for them...'

Pretty heavy stuff.

And if you're the preacher you trust that God exists, that the Bible is what it says it is, that the inputs you've studied and absorbed over your life that are influencing your interpretation and application are 'the ones God (in His Omniscience) intended...' and that the Holy Spirit actually exists, inspired what you're reading and is doing the same to you as you write something 'trustworthy' from it for your people.

Say you're in TV or in the movies...

If you're one of the lucky ones who gets to produce something that's actually going to find its way to an audience, your audience is believing for much the same from you as it is from the preacher.  They trust you to entertain them, to take them away, to inform them, to move or inspire them, to (ultimately) not waste their time because time is the one thing none of us can get any more of.

So you, the storyteller, trust 'the process' (and how crazy is that, by the way?) and believe that you're going to be 'inspired' (however that works for you) to create something that fits the above.  Then you've got to trust your abilities and then leverage that trust into confidence that breeds the ability to draw people to work with you, then, once THAT monstrous task is done, you've got to trust them to apply their gifts/sensibilities to making your dream a reality.

Pretty heavy stuff.

Say you're neither a preacher nor a filmmaker.

Well then, here's how it might work for you...

You trust your wife to love you.  You trust God (or whoever/whatever you believe is in charge) to help you find a wife, make healthy babies, be able to raise them etc.  You trust your teachers to prepare you for College and your Professors to prepare you for the real world.  Then, when you reach the real world and realize most of what you've learned is completely useless, you trust in your ability to find your way through to learning how to make a living.

You trust your baker not to poison you.

You trust your country to not devalue its currency to the point of bankrupting you.

You trust the pilot not to crash you.

You trust your Doctor to know how to heal you.

You trust your banker not to rob you.

(It just occurred to me that we don't contemplate our extreme vulnerability that much, otherwise it'd stress us into incapacity)

"So the point of all this is...?"

You have no choice but to trust, so you might as well embrace it and take risks worthy of you.

Follow that story line through to its logical conclusion even if you're worried it's going to suck. Make that cold-call even though you might get rejected.  Kiss that girl.  Ask for that raise. Pursue that dream.  Write that sermon believing (truly believing) in the unseen.  Make that investment, quit that job, write that screenplay, pitch that movie, plant that church, buy that engagement ring.  Get that house.

There is no other way to live but to be neck deep in the need to trust.

The sooner you admit it and start acting on it, the sooner you'll be on your way to the cliff's edge and that's where life gets really interesting.

T