Giving (Ruthless) Trust

"What was that book you were reading just now?" asked the backpack-er woman sitting beside us.

Esther, Ruth and I were travelling the Victoria Line tube trains towards Westminster. "Ruthless Trust", I replied, "by an alcoholic Catholic priest called Brennan Manning. It's brilliant."

As a bit of follow-up to an exercise that I'd set for the two of them on Tuesday, I'd been reading a paragraph about gratitude and trust to them as we stood on the platform, waiting for the train to arrive. I hadn't noticed that our back-packer friend was listening in.

And then, after we boarded the train, I got Esther and Ruth to read through a second paragraph earlier in the book... that's when she asked her question.

I need to buy another copy now, because as she started to write the details down, I felt I should give her the book. (Those who know me well will know my slight addiction to books... giving this one away, with it's margin-filled scribbles and under-linings was a BIG sacrifice! Ha ha.) "Here you go," I said, "you'll love it."

I definitely loved it when I first read it years ago. I seem to remember weeping my way through the first few pages... and being deeply touched by the whole grace, gratitude, trust message of the book. If you wrestle with trust, gratitude, grace, suffering... then I'd recommend this beautiful little book.

And while I await delivery of my shiny new copy of 'Ruthless Trust', here are the two paragraphs that Esther, Ruth and I were looking at yesterday;

In the first, Manning quotes Henri Nouwen;
"To be grateful for the good things that happen in our lives is easy, but to be grateful for all of our lives - the good as well as the bad, the moments of joy as well as the moments of sorrow, the successes as well as the failures, the rewards as well as the rejections - that requires hard spiritual work. Still, we are only grateful people when we can say thank you to all that has brought us to the present moment. As long as we keep dividing our lives between events and people we would like to remember and those we would rather forget, we cannot claim the fullness of our beings as a gift of God to be grateful for. Let's not be afraid to look at everything that has brought us to where we are now and trust that we will soon see it in the guiding hand of a loving God."

And this second one is my favourite. Perhaps because i feel like it describes my stumbling walk of faith;
"In the arc of my unremarkable life, wherein the victories have been small and personal, the trials fairly pedestrian, and the failures large enough to deeply wound me and those I love, I have repeated endlessly the pattern of falling down and getting up, falling down and getting up. Each time I fall, I am propelled to renew my efforts by a blind trust in the forgiveness of my sins from sheer grace, in the acquittal, vindication, and justification of my ragged journey based not on any good deeds I have done (the approach taken by the Pharisee in the temple) but on an unflagging trust in the love of a gracious and merciful God."

Awesome.

Comments

[Diane]

Oh I just love every thing Brenan Manning writes. Heard him speak about 12 years ago and have never been quite the same since.
What you've quoted is very similar to what I'm reading in Tommy Tenney's "in the king's presence" a study on Esther, on how we only become intimate with God by worshiping Him. Anyone can praise and thank Him esp when things are going well but just to worship just because is what changes things and brings us into His throne room!

Now I'm going to have to add another book to my amazon wish list!!!!
X

[Alana]

Someone recommended this to me at Magnify. Then I walked into Oxfam in Reading last week and there it was. I'm sure I'll be crying my way through it soon enough.

[Ruth]

I'm loving reading it so far... :)

[Zoe]

I love the Brennan Manning books I have read so far, but this is one I have not got around to. I reckon I need to put it on my To Read list!

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