Radical Trust

Yesterday my wife called me during those torrential rains.   While we were talking she had a blowout and then the phone went dead.  I immediately got into my car and drove to Burlington to find her.  I talked to her a few times before I got there with the call dropping each time.  Once there I began to change the tire in the middle of all this water falling from the sky.   I got all the lug nuts off, but the tire with all its brake dust and rust wouldn’t come off the car.   Before long a man pulled into the driveway of the house we were parked in front of and after speaking to us for a moment came back with a hammer, crawled up under the car in all that water, and helped get the tire off.   During all of this at one point, we heard the sound of metal bouncing down the road.  “What was that?”  “I don’t know.”    With the wheel back on, we got in the car and drove home.

An hour or so later, after my shower, I was laying in bed when I realized my wedding band was missing.   The metal on the road… I realized then my wedding ring had slipped off in the storm and flown out into the darkness.   Julie and I got back in the car and drove back to Burlington.   She was very quiet on the way and I said: “Are you ok?”  “I’m just praying to Saint Anthony.”   When we got there, she opened her door, turned on the flashlight, bent down and got back in the car.  The ring was right at her feet.   We were at least fifty feet from where we changed the tire, on the other side of a storm drain!  Right out in the open, undamaged, and exactly where we stopped the car.

I don’t believe in coincidences.  All of this was the providence of God.  I think that’s the kind of radical trust Jesus is calling us to in the Gospel today.   That when we go out into the world, we can trust God to provide every need we have.  Whether it be a kind stranger to help get the tire off the car, or putting the ring you lost right at your feet when you return to find it, he will make sure you have exactly what you need.  The question is: do we trust him enough to set out in faith?  Each day is an opportunity to say: Jesus, I trust in you.   Radical trust.  The kind of trust that says despite the storms of life that drench us as we try to work in this world, we will continue to change the tires that need to be changed.