Trusting in a Waiting Room

While waiting for my younger son to come out of surgery, a doctor I met for two minutes is cutting through his boyish flesh. I wonder if the doctor’s marriage is happy, and if he had a good evening last night, and does he have a son in trouble? How are his stocks doing? I hope his hands are steady and his eyes are clear. How we put trust in taxi drivers, in the woman who makes out sandwich behind the door, in the pilot with gold wings on his hat and in the doctor who slices the nasal canal of my boy.

Faith is nothing private. We cannot eat without trusting the butcher, the baker and we cannot see without trusting the candlestick maker. We cannot cross a street without trusting that that a red light will hold back tons of metal power. Who installed the cable in the elevator and who could have spit in the water?
 
Most of my trusting is as easy as breathing. I trust the air is good. Trusting a bank to guard my money is almost as easy. But to trust this doctor. This weekend here in Medellin, Colombia, I will stand before thousands of people who trust me to give them a word, to slice their hearts with the word of God. They will hand me their hearts for a few minutes.

In a few more minutes the doctor will come out and tell us how the surgery went. I will try to read his face from the distance. I want him to be smiling and saying that everything is all right. If he is thinking about a problem at home, I might misread his eyes. I know people are looking at me when I open the Book in funerals, in hospitals and in the church. Sometimes I feel them looking so hard at my eyes. I have had some hard nights, but I trust my face will say, “In Jesus everything is all right."