In God I Trust

In recent months, I have facilitated two study groups on the book
In the Shadow of God’s Wings. This book chronicles Susan
Gregg-Schroeder’s journey through depression. Surprisingly, she describes what she calls the “gifts of depression.” The first gift is that of vulnerability, in particular our vulnerability to God. The truth is that when we need to trust the most, we have the most fear, and we struggle for control. It is difficult to trust when we don’t know what lies ahead. Often it is not until we are at our weakest that we relinquish control and cry out for help. It is then that we become vulnerable and open ourselves to trust in God.

My favorite book in The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis is The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Eustace is a different sort of child. He didn’t have many friends, and he didn’t care much for his cousins. Yet on this particular adventure, he was glad that Edmund and Lucy were coming along because deep down, he enjoyed bossing and bullying. Having wandered off from the group in order to avoid hard work, Eustace came upon a dragon’s lair. Because he hadn’t read the right books, Eustace didn’t know that a dragon’s lair contains both treasure and danger. Eventually his greed turned him into a horrible dragon, isolated and alone. Eustace was deep in his misery when Aslan (the Great Lion and Christ figure of the Chronicles) came to him and led him into the mountains to a small well of water. Once there, Eustace tried to strip himself of his dragon scales, but each time he thought he was done, he found a deeper layer. Aslan eventually told Eustace that he would have to let Aslan strip the scales. Fearing the lion’s claws, being “pretty near desperate,” Eustace lay flat on his back and opened himself to Aslan’s care. With this act of faith, his humanity returned.

Why do we have to be at our most vulnerable, flat on our backs, before we are willing to place our trust in God?

— Ed Federico