These concrete encounters with our finitude should remind us of who is in control, but interestingly, they often don't. Rather than calling our mind to God's divine providence, unforeseen trials often cause us to turn in on ourselves. It seems to be human instinct to try to control everything on your own. When we're suffering, we just want to have that one thing we can control, that one area of our lives where we're in charge. Instead of turning outward to God, we turn inwards, trusting in our own powers of control. Part of the reason for this is that it's easier for us to see those things that we control, but more difficult to acknowledge God's control over things. We see how we work, play, sleep, plan with our own senses, but we can only see God's planning with the aid of our intellect. It's so easy for fallen man to never move beyond his senses.
The instinct to seize control is not necessarily a bad thing. Indeed, God does not ask us to simply throw our hands in the air and say "Alright, I'm going to sit on the couch, you take care of it." That isn't what He asks of His disciples. Trusting in God does not imply or require inaction on our part. It would not benefit man if God simply did everything for him, for what truly benefits man is what brings him closer to God, and what truly brings him closer to God is working in unison with God. We grow closer to God by working with Him actively, but always understanding that He sees everything, where as we see only a small part of things.
The type of work I'm talking about, though, is often not understood in the world of assembly lines and cubicles. Today, working "together" means having a meeting so that everybody can then go off and do their own jobs. So many jobs today are focused on allowing each person to work relatively alone for most of the day, only coming together occasionally to talk about the work being done separately. To work with God, though, is more similar to the way people used to work together. People used to work side by side with their family, their neighbors, trusting them to carry the load. Trust was a huge part of the work, trusting that each person would help the others not out of a sense of "duty" but out of loyalty to the others. Similarly, we must work side by side with God, trusting that he will help us, and seeking to perform acts of love for Him out of devotion and loyalty.
A necessary part of this trusting "work" relationship is that we must be comfortable and confident when asking God for things, and we must also remember when we've asked Him for something. So often I find in my prayer life that I am only halfheartedly asking God for something. I will ask Him for something, and then I'll sort of sit to wait to see if it happens. St. Therese, though, says that we should be so confident when petitioning God that we should immediately thank Him for granting our prayers. Every petition to God should include a thanksgiving to Him. Every time we ask God to help us, we must have confidence that He will help us. We must have confidence that He is listening.
To help us with this confidence, we must also remember what we ask for from God. Often times we have a short memory span when it comes to our petitions. We ask God for something, and when we receive it, we are so excited that we forget that we asked for it. We must begin to recognize when our prayers our answered, for then we will see that He really is worthy of our meager trust. If we are on the lookout for His answers, we will discover how truly generous He is. Ultimately, this process of trust, confidence, and thanksgiving will increase our love for God. We'll begin to see that before we ever trusted Him, He loved us.
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