Growing in the Theological Virtues – Trust Before Faith?
Just because the Hebrew people had grown in trust enough to know God more intimately through Moses, the lessons in growing in trust were far from over. In fact, one of the most noted parts of the Exodus story is how fickle the Hebrew people were. They whined in the desert after being rescued from Egypt and taking quite a bit of Egyptian wealth with them. They whined at Moses that they were hungry and thirsty. They built the Golden Calf – returning to the Egyptian gods – because they were sure that God must have killed Moses on Mount Siani. They were far from mastering trust.
The same is true of our own spiritual growth. The theological virtues build on each other. Before we can really grow in the virtue of faith, we need to first learn to trust God. The virtue of hope is not just a vague sense of trust. It also includes the daily practice of trust in God. That’s the challenge. Do you really trust God in your daily walk? Do your moral choices show that you really believe that God’s way is the best way, even when it seems the more difficult way to us? Can we trust that God really is working all things for good for those who love him, even when things aren’t looking so good for us? This daily trust in God is very difficult to master.
Fortunately for us we don’t have to master trust before we can start to grow in intimacy. Once we trust that what God reveals about himself is true, we begin our journey into intimacy. Our intimacy and our trust can then grow together. The more we trust God, the deeper in intimacy we can grow. The more intimately we know God, the more completely we can trust him. Hope and faith feed each other. That’s how the theological virtues work.
The Hebrew people did grow in trust. They did much better under Joshua. They faltered, but they continued to grow. King David led them to even deeper trust and deeper intimacy with God. King Solomon also led them to grow in intimacy with God when he asked God for wisdom, the Gift of the Holy Spirit that empowers us to think with the mind of God. Salvation history gives us the hope that we can get there too. Even when we seem to be faltering, God’s grace is there and all we have to do is cooperate with it.