Trust

I've been poking through "The Ultimate Christmas Cracker" by the late John Julius Norwich.  Each year, he would collect quotes and other tidbits, collect them, and then share them with his kith and kin during the Yuletide.  A few compendia of crackers appeared over the years and this latest volume is something of a greatest hits collection spanning the years 1970 to 2019.  One of the gems he included was a quote from A Burnt-Out Case by Graham Greene:

'The priests would tell you to pray that God's will be done.'
'I'd want to know what his will was before I prayed anything like that' she said.

There's something very twentieth century about these words, particularly the sardonic, knowing, presumptuous nature that claims a human right to know the plans of the Almighty.  Life doesn't work that way.  Still, the Christian tradition teaches that God has already disclosed his desires for you, me, and all creation and during this season of Advent we reflect on the game-changing arrival of Jesus, who was Love Incarnate brought into the world.

Green's character was skeptical.  The Christian is called to be trusting, of the word, the promises, the anticipated actions of our God, who loves us wholly.

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