Fear Not Little Flock

We are acquainted with the practice of self-reliance, I hope we are also practitioners of trust in help beyond ourselves. I don’t know what age you were when you took your first stand with words such as “I want to do it myself!” These kinds of declarations are the seeds of confidence, they are the pursuit of pride in your capabilities. This mode of operation runs very deep in people. The other side of it, however, comes when we hope for things beyond our abilities.

It is good to be self-sufficient for many pursuits, but we also come to discover the need for help from others. For the greatest hopes, we depend upon that ultimate Other. We turn to God for healing, forgiveness, and life beyond this life. We turn to God for guidance no one else can supply, for peace, the world cannot give, for deliverance into everlasting life.  What the Savior supplies allows us to leap into things we can’t achieve.

We are familiar with the complete relatedness of faith and trust. To have faith is to depend upon something or someone. To trust is to turn to another for help. We can pluck two verses out of our Psalm for this Sunday and recognize the language of such faith. I have been saying these over and over again to get the feeling:

Our soul waits for the Lord; *
     he is our help and our shield.

Let your loving-kindness, O Lord, be upon us, *
     as we have put our trust in you.  (Psalm 33:20, 22)

Elements from the other Scripture Lessons this Sunday will fit with the theme of faith, and critical waiting for Christ. The figure of Abraham is the paragon of trust. He appears in both the Genesis lesson and the Hebrews lesson that we will examine. A family of faith—a people of the covenant—was just not going to issue except through the inexplicable power of God. A Gospel corollary to that comes from Jesus’s comfort offered to his frightened disciples. They would never be able to represent to others the reign of God brought by Jesus unless God gave them what was needed.

How would they live simply and without possessions; how would they put their heart completely in Christ; how could they be ready for the final drama of the Son of Man? They couldn’t except by the gift of God. Trusting in the one Jesus called Father allows them to move into what is impossible for them on their own. We too have been made children of that generous one who supplies gifts beyond our natural ability. We too are called to mission, so we dress for action and have lamps lit in readiness. Life can be overwhelming, and yes, we are afraid, but Jesus says, fear not little flock. We declare, “Our soul waits for the Lord; he is our help and our shield.” We make our prayer, “Let your loving-kindness, O Lord, be upon us, as we have put our trust in you.”