Paul Williams (Photo: Elisabeth Williams)There is a lot of cynicism around at the moment about trust. Can banks be trusted? Here in Britain people used to say, ‘As safe as the Bank of England.’ Now they are not so sure. Can the media be trusted? Can politicians? You know the sort of thing – ‘never believe anything until it has been officially denied’. – or ‘The relationship between the electorate and politicians is founded on trust and understanding; they don't understand us and we don't trust them’! So trust is at a premium and in today's climate leaders will have to work extra hard to earn it. But the trust I want to consider here is of a different order – trust in God. There is another word that is a sort of satellite to trust and that is assurance.

I don't know about you, but these days - perhaps it has something to do with having entered the ranks of the over-seventies or finally discovering that I am a natural worrier – I feel more in need of assurance. More than I used to. Assurance that God is there. Assurance that I am on the right track. Assurance that all will be well. Assurance that I will be given the grace, strength and wisdom a particular event may demand.

I don't know whether this is down to a lack of confidence – or to a wiser understanding of my own capabilities, my own fallibilities. Anyway I do quite often feel inadequate for a task or an encounter and in need of assurance.

Quite early on when I began working with Initiatives of Change I remember someone asking, ‘Do you trust the God you serve?’ My instant answer was ‘Yes’. I meant it, but I now wonder whether it was a bit too instant, whether it came a bit too easily off the tongue, perhaps a little brashly even – without really weighing the depth of faith that the answer implied and required. Yes, I trusted Him. I trusted Him when I left university and embarked on full-time work with no salary and no career structure. I trusted him when I got married with nothing in the bank. I think now I was almost breathtakingly casual when I mentioned this fact to my future father-in-law. It seemed to me at the time quite a natural state of affairs.

I remember an incident soon after we were engaged. My father had a church in Eastbourne and we were going there from London on one of our first visits as an engaged couple. We were expected at my father's morning service at the United Reformed Church and the train was late. We thought he looked a bit anxious when we scraped in just in time. When the sermon had finished we knew why. It was all on the theme, ‘How far can you trust God?’ – and it was meant for us. My father knew something of the depth of trust we would need as we embarked on our married life.

My wife and I trusted when the children were born – first one daughter and then the second. We trusted about their education. … and so it went on.

It is our own record of trust. One definition of trust that I found was, ‘certainty based on past experience’. To know if people can be depended on in the future we rightly want to know how far they have been trustworthy in the past. A bank will want to know (or ought to want to know!) your credit history before determining if you are credit worthy before they make a loan. If you are appointing someone to a post where trust is required, you will want to know their track record. To know something about their past. You will want solid references.

Similarly we can look back and ask, what is our experience of the past? Has God been dependable? Has he kept his promises? Can I trust him today? For tomorrow?

I remember when I went to India for the second time in 1967. A group of us flew out from London together. On arrival, the others were invited to join a travelling group of young people moving around with songs and sketches – but not me. I learned that I was invited to stay in Bombay and work on Himmat – the English language Weekly founded by Rajmohan Gandhi and standing for ‘a clean, strong and united India’– as Circulation Manager. Of course I said yes (we had after all gone out to serve in any way), but with a heavy heart. What was God doing? It seemed far more adventurous to go around the country with the young travelling group. And if I was to work on Himmat , surely I could have been invited to work on the writing, journalistic side? I knew nothing about circulation and it certainly did not sound very exciting.

Yet those three years on Himmat Weekly turned out to be a hugely fulfilling time. I found circulation could really be quite interesting and rewarding. It came to include work with students all over Bombay as we sought to boost student subscriptions through a series of campaigns on the different campuses. And I did get to do some writing, in the form of book and film reviews. And, to crown it all, it was in the Himmat office that I met and fell in love with Elizabeth who was working as Secretary to the Editor. We married in 1971.

Ye fearful saints fresh courage take,
The clouds you so much dread
Are big with mercy and will break
In blessings o'r your head.

We have all had such experiences – and as we remember them – bring them each to mind – our trust is strengthened. The one who was dependable in the past will be dependable in the future.

One person who is often quoted in this context – of our search for assurance – is Julian of Norwich, the 14th century nun who attached herself to the church of St Julian in Norwich. She had an overwhelming sense of God's love provision and care. ‘Love is the Lord’s meaning,’ she wrote, ‘before He made us he loved us.’ Her most widely known words are, ‘All shall be well and all manner of things shall be well.’ But hers was not just an easy catch-all, general promise of well-being. She explained more fully what she meant when she said, ‘He did not say “You shall not be tormented, you shall not be troubled, you shall not be grieved”. He did say “You shall not be overcome”.’ Julian recognises that there may well be dark passages we have to go through where it is not easy to make sense of what is happening to us. Times when our trust is really tested. Times when we ask 'where is God in all this?' A modern-day Julian, Dutch writer Corrie Ten Boom, put it like this, ‘When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don't throw away the ticket and get off. You sit still and trust the engineer.’

I sometimes feel very humbled and challenged when I see how others cope with the blows of life. Will I have that courage? Will I be able to keep trusting God like that? To sit still and trust the engineer? I don't know how I will be if the tunnel gets really dark. But I am sure I will be looking to where to turn for assurance. One obvious place to turn to is our scriptures – for Christians like me the Bible. I conclude with just one short example of what I mean. It is from Isaiah chapter 46, verses 3-4. There are of course very many more.

‘Listen to me, O house of Jacob, all you who remain of the house of Israel, you who I have upheld since you were conceived, and have carried since your birth. Even to your old age and grey hairs I am He; I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.’