Aladdin is one of my most favorite Disney movies. It’s so iconic - from the characters (Aladdin, Jasmine, Jafar, Abu, Iago, Carpet), to the music and the now-bygone artistry of its animation. Aladdin is one of those movies that continues to captivate imaginations.
One of the scenes that stands out is actually two, both centered around the question: Do you trust me? The first time it is asked takes place when Aladdin and Jasmine are running to escape the Sultan’s guards. Aladdin reaches out his hand and asks Jasmine to trust him before they take the proverbial Leap. The second time it occurs is when Aladdin, pretending to be a prince, asks Jasmine to join him on a magic carpet ride (SUCH a great song). The question becomes the tell that gives his true identity away: Do you trust me?
“Trust” and “Faith” go hand-in-hand in the Bible.
There are so. many. instances. of God asking people: Do you trust me?
The Psalms, in particular, speak of trusting God. More than 40 times the psalmist compels the reader to trust in the Lord. The gospels and New Testament letters continue to speak to the importance of this sacred trust, most often using the word “faith.” Jesus heals those who put their trust in Him.1 The disciples cry out: Increase our faith!2 And when on a boat in the middle of stormy seas, Jesus laments: You of little faith. Why are you so afraid?3
It’s the story of the Israelites wandering through the wilderness, however, that I find uniquely compelling. Yahweh, God, delivers God’s people from slavery under Pharaoh’s rule and then they spend FORTY YEARS learning whom and how to trust…and who to not.
The Exodus stories tell of God’s trustworthiness. When God’s people are thirsty, God provides water. When they hunger, God sends birds and bread. When they are wandering, God gives them a path to follow.
But the stories also witness to the people’s lack of faith and their distrust of God. Moses, their leader, is away for a few days receiving a word from the LORD and that’s all it takes for the Israelites to turn their gold into an idol. The people whined a lot too. Misremembering days gone bye, “they said to each other, ‘We should choose a leader and go back to Egypt.’”4 Even when they were on the doorstep of the Promised Land, in spite of forty years of God’s unrelenting faithfulness, the people did not trust God enough to go forward with God in to it.
This is a story not only about the Israelites; it is the story of every person in every generation and our relationship with the God revealed in Jesus.
Each of us, like each of them, finds ourselves somewhere on the pendulum swinging between trust and distrust, faithFULLness and faithLESSness. The old hymn-writer Robert Robinson’s words continue to resonate 250 years later:
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
prone to leave the God I love.
Which brings me to a question my Spiritual Director / Therapist asked me a couple weeks ago:
“Jared, Do you trust God?”
It’s the question she and I have been wrestling with for a couple years now in deeper and wider and fuller ways - stretching my faith like Kansas City quarterback Patrick Mahomes does in order to increase his flexibility and resiliency and to avoid injury when the inevitable hits come to get him.
This new faith-exercise-routine began when I was playing with my kids, inviting them to jump off a high place and trust that I would catch them. In that moment, I realized God was asking me the very same question I was asking them, the same question God asked the Israelites thousands of years ago, the same question Aladdin asked Jasmine before they made The Leap: Do you trust Me?
And there, tucked within the question, is a choice: to trust or not to trust.
Will I choose to trust God enough to make The Leap God is asking me to take?
Will I choose to trust God in spite of past pains or present risks?
Will I choose to trust God even though it doesn’t make sense? Even though I have been wandering away? Even though it means sacrificing my wants, wishes, and pleasures?
Will I choose to trust God…
God doesn’t force us to trust, nor does God coerce us either. God simply extends God’s hand and asks, Do you trust me?
The choice is yours. And the choice is mine.
May we choose to trust God more this year. In the good times and less then. In certain times and cloudy seasons. When life goes as planned and especially when our plans go awry. May you and I choose to trust God over and over and over again. Amen.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to Him and He will make your paths straight.”
Proverbs 3:5-6
Matthew 9:2; Mark 5:34; Luke 18:42 to name a few.
Luke 17:5
Matthew 8:26
Numbers 14:4