To Grow in Basic Trust
By Dr. Donald B. Rogers, Ph.D
Retired Colonel Cowden Professor of Christian Education
United Theological Seminary
Dayton, Ohio 

In prayer before a class at Columbia Seminary, after reading Jeremiah 17:5–11, well-known Old Testament scholar and teacher, Walter Brueggemann said,

“ God of all our times: We have known since the day of our birth that our primal task is

                to grow to basic trust in you,
                to rely on you in every circumstance,
                to know that you would return when you are away,
                to trust that in your absence you will soon be present,
                to be assured that your silence bespeaks attentiveness and not neglect,
                to know that in your abiding faithfulness, all will be well and all will be well.”* 

Those who have read Eric Erikson’s Childhood and Society hear the echo, consciously or unconsciously intended, of the first task of life in that developmental schemata: Basic Trust vs. Basic Mistrust. And we hear in the prayer too the fear/assurance pattern of the newborn infant and the parental care. 

What strikes us, as well, is Brueggemann’s phrase “to grow to basic trust”. We are in the midst of a process of becoming where we begin. If the first task is reasonably well negotiated the foundation is laid but the growth continues. If the first task is reasonably well cared for then the journey continues on “good legs.” 

The Jeremiah passage contrasts the state of blessedness/cursedness of they who trust in God or in human strength only. The one who trusts in God is like a “tree planted by the water, that sends out its roots by the stream.” This again is an image of growth well begun and nourished in a state of blessedness where trust is first learned in parental arms and care and is seen, when appropriate, to be the “primal task” of those growing in faith. 

As is spoken again and again in the Blessing Center to young children, each by name: 

God loves you.

God created you for God’s own.

God is with you.

God blesses you. 

*(page 47  Awed to Heaven Rooted in Earth  Augsburg Fortress 2003  0-8006-3460-8)