Theology and William Tell

The story of William Tell shooting the apple off his son Walter's head has always left me vaguely curious. Did that really happen? Did his son cooperate or was he tied down somehow? Were the onlookers hoping he'd hit the apple…or not?

Of course, being me, the first thing that jumps out at me from a story of a man shooting an apple off his son's head is a flowery metaphor for a deep spiritual truth. Great. Did Walter trust his dad? Did William trust himself? Is trust the same thing as knowing the outcome?

Yesterday, I was meeting with my counselor. [Sidebar: Counseling is great. Everyone needs a little therapy. Go get you some counseling. Especially if you're a current or future pastor of any stripe.] I forget what exactly we were talking about, but I said something like, "I guess I just don't really trust myself." He responded more affirmatively than might have been considered polite in any other setting, but it's a truth I've been wrestling with for a while. I don't trust myself.

What that means is that I end up looking to everyone else to tell me how I should think and feel, and what I should do. The problem is that I don't necessarily trust other people either. That's new for me. Most of my life, I've been very trusting of others, to a fault. I haven't really lost that, but as I get older and life sends me more complicated messages and lots of mixed signals, it's harder to know whom to trust.

Of course, the answer should be obvious. I should be trusting God. Yeah, yeah. I know. I have excuses for not trusting God more—God has never been very direct with me, how do I know it's God's voice and not my own fallen desires or the voices of other authority figures in my life, yadda yadda. But I should be trusting God.

And not necessarily to show me the right way. I believe God will guide me on the path eventually. But I'm realizing I've lived my whole life believing that there are very strict right and wrong answers to questions of what I'm supposed to do with my life. Applying for summer field education has been a traumatic experience because I've convinced myself that it would be possible for me to apply for the WRONG kind of field ed.

But that's absurd. God doesn't work that way. Gary said something recently that I really needed to hear: "God's will for your life is not a tightrope to walk." God's love is wide and deep. Yes, God has plans for me. But who am I to limit God's endless creativity in drawing me into that plan?

To go back to William Tell, discerning my vocation is NOT like shooting an apple off the head of my future. My calling is not a minuscule target that I must hit in exactly the right spot to please God or to be happy or whatever it is I think I want out of life. I need to trust in God, not necessarily to be a sign pointing down one road or another, but as the one who carved all the roads and, to paraphrase William Paul Young in The Shack, would travel any path to get to me.