In polite company, we’re told not to discuss religion, sex, or money. So today, I’m not discussing sex!
God is a very loaded term these days so please let me add an inclusive caveat to the Minute and my use of God.
God is being used in the broadest possible terms without affiliation to a particular denomination, faith, or point of view. I’m using God as inclusive of your worldview even if you’re an agnostic.
You may call God Nature, The Life Force, The Trinity, Jesus, Abba, Spirit, Jehovah, The Big Bang, or some other point of origin for the planet and our lives on it. In other words, unless you are a hard core atheist, don’t be offended.
Trust, not God, is the focus of the OP Minute. If you are searching for purpose, then you can’t avoid the spiritual nature of your quest and the need to trust that something bigger than you exists. Sure it raises important questions that profoundly affect our lives and color our worldview.
Do This: Grab a piece of paper and invest 60 seconds to jot down your answers to these questions:
- Can you trust?
- Where is your trust placed?
- Where has your trust been violated? What did you learn?
- Who do you trust … why?
- How do you find trust in the midst of the swirl of current world events?
- Without trust, can you ever find rest or peace?
God (broadly referenced remember) is bigger than we are. God is present today and around tomorrow. Long after we die, God exists. God is humbling and continuous. There’s something undeniably bigger than us, and God is a widely accepted term for that something.
When I go to the ocean, I often think of the sound of the waves crashing on the beach as the heartbeat of God. We can close our ears, minds, and hearts to the presence of God, but we can’t stop the waves from beating the shores. And we can’t stop those waves from pulsing on our hearts.
Trust, then, is a coming to terms with the world and your place in it.
Money, while nice to have, is a store of value but a counterfeit store of trust. If you’ll accept my premise about money, then where do you place your trust? Repeat this cycle of asking yourself where is the basis of your trust.
Honest repetition of the cycle eventually peels back the layers of empty stores to reveal God. Yet God is more concept than concrete. It defies logic to trust a mere concept. Yet, the mystery of God’s presence for as long as you can remember becomes undeniable. Something is there that our minds alone can’t grasp. And now we’re being asked to trust it more than we do when driving through an intersection with a green light. Weird, huh? Wonderful, yes!
That source of it all is why “In God We Trust” is such an important reminder of what matters most even as we wisely earn, save, and invest money.
Be On-Purpose!
Kevin
