Reliability and Trust

A seven-year-old lad was excited about being on a fishing trip with his father. At what seemed like a good area in the lake for fishing, the man stopped the boat and told his son to throw the anchor overboard. The boy promptly obeyed, only to see the anchor, along with its attached rope, sink out of sight. Only then did he sadly realize that the other end of the rope had not been attached to the boat.

From the earliest ages of Christianity, the image of an anchor in iconography, and also in Scripture, has symbolized the stabilizing influence of hope and trust. Yet the stabilizing influence of our hope-filled trust in God will not produce its intended effect if the anchor itself is not anchored--that is, firmly attached--to our very being. The anchor in itself must be reliably linked to our very soul and psyche. We must never let ourselves be detached from the other end of the anchor rope.

This rather subtle norm of spirituality may be formulated as a kind of paradox: God relies on us to rely on him. He is the anchor that seeks to provide the stability we desire and need, but if we become detached from him by not consistently relying on the stability that he wants to provide, then we vitiate his very desire to provide it. God is certainly reliable: “I shall not fail you nor desert you” (Heb 13:5; Dt 31:6). The question is, is our reliance on him unflagging? The keynote of reliability is constancy. Authentic trust demands reliability, expressed by a constant readiness on our part for receiving the constant givingon his part. In addition, this readiness must be so constant that it flourishes even when his giving is camouflaged as hurt.

This excerpt is from the book Pathways of Trust, by John H. Hampsch,C.M.F., originally published by Servant Publications. It and other of Fr. Hampsch's books and audio/visual materials can be purchased from Claretian Teaching Ministry, 20610 Manhattan Pl, #120, Torrance, CA 90501-1863. Phone 1-310-782-6408.