"Trust me! I can help you." The minute I spoke the words, I realized how utterly useless voicing them was, indeed how ridiculous my entire demeanour must be. There I was, crouching with hand extended, slowing walking forward, talking to a crow. And I didn’t even like crows.

It was promising to be another crisp, fall day in the Lower Mainland. The sun was peering over the partly cloudy horizon, as I traversed the usual terrain that greeted me on my daily morning walk. I was deep in thought, sorting through-well, to be honest, I was fretting about-some of the many details that our pending move to Texas had imposed on the largely stress-free existence that I had grown accustomed to.

As I rounded the corner and headed down the lane that runs along the Little League ball field, the obnoxious cawing of two crows rudely interrupted my ruminations. The birds appeared to be fretting about something that had invaded their otherwise seemingly carefree lives.

I quickly spied the source of their consternation. In the grassy meadow just beyond the pavement, a third crow was expending a great amount of energy jumping and flapping about, vainly attempting to fly. Somehow the scavenger had gotten his left wing through the round hole of the handle of a little pink, plastic bag. With the tightly fitting object snugly lodged where wing meets body, the poor bird had no chance whatsoever of getting airborne.

I gave the crow a wide berth and went on my way. His family in the tree above him-at least I surmised they were his family-would have to remedy his plight. And if they were unsuccessful? Well, one less crow in the world would not be a great loss, especially given the amount of havoc these mean creatures have been known to inflict on other bird species.

I was only a few paces down the lane when the full impact of the crow’s plight registered in my mind. Unless I do something, this hapless bird is going to die. He will undoubtedly meet his fate in the snout of any one of the many mammals that view the ball field and adjacent park as their private playground. I cringed as I contemplated what it must be like to be mauled by a dog set loose from its leash to roam the park for a few short minutes of unbridled freedom or to become the feathery sport for a neighbourhood cat out on the prowl.

I turned in my tracks and retraced my trajectory. At first, I remained a good distance away from the crow. Earlier encounters with these creatures had instilled in me an awareness of their prowess in psychological warfare. Crows are capable of launching a dive-bomber attack so threatening that it elicits terror in the heart of anyone who evokes their ire. I did not want to provoke such behaviour from the specimens of this species perched above my head, were I to launch an attempted rescue of their entangled comrade. Despite what I surmised was the warlike chirping of the two potential assailants viewing the scene from above, I overcame my hesitance and decided to see if I could get near enough to the grounded bird to remedy his plight.

At first, the imprisoned crow countered each of my movements in his direction with a corresponding flutter-filled hop away from me. But soon he seemed to realize that, shackled as he was by the plastic bag; he simply did not have the where-with-all to evade indefinitely a much larger, unencumbered human. The bird signalled his capitulation by collapsing in the grass. By positioning himself perpendicular to my line of advance, he was able to gaze at me through his left eye. It was then that I spoke: "Trust me! I can help you." A fruitless, dumb gesture, I thought, after the seemingly pointless words had escaped my mouth. But how else could I attempt to assure the crow not only that I intended him no harm but also that I was his only hope for survival?

I would like to believe that the little creature somehow understood my words. In any case, he didn’t move a muscle-indeed, he appeared uncharacteristically calm-as I advanced slowly but steadily in his direction. The crow seemed to have decided to entrust his entire life into my hands for good or for ill. (Equally miraculous from my vantage point, I should add, the two-feathered dive-bombers remained in the tree above rather than intervening in the drama unfolding on the ground.)

Stealthily I moved in, until I was so close I could have actually touched the little body that lay motionless in the grass in front of me. I repeated softly the words-"Trust me! I can help you." Then I reached out with both hands, carefully tore the plastic and pulled away the pink prison that had held the crow captive.

Mission completed, I backed away and resumed the personal journey that had been interrupted by the plight of my little feathered friend. Back on the trail, I became enveloped once again by my private, interior world, filled with the concerns that had been foisted upon me by our pending move-selling a house, dealing with the immigration process, hoping that a position would open up for Edna who was putting her ministry career in abeyance in accompanying me to Texas.

As I entered the park just beyond the lane, my thoughts were again interrupted, this time by a short series of caws coming from three crows flying overhead. As the joyous birds expressed what seemed to me to be their gratitude for my gesture, the words I had voiced just a few moments earlier reverberated in my mind: "Trust me! I can help you." But this time, they were not spoken by me, but to me.

I continued my morning walk, musing about how often our loving heavenly Father speaks to us in the midst of the difficult situations of life and about the response-faith-His words are designed to engender in us. I recounted the description of faith as unconditional trust that I had repeatedly articulated to the students in my theology classes.

And I was, of course, quick to draw the obvious connection between the typical Christian perspective on the nature of faith and the crow’s response to me: Just as the hapless creature needed to admit the hopelessness of his plight, cease struggling and trust me unconditionally to receive my assistance, so also we must admit the hopelessness of our imprisonment to the cares that break into our world, cease from our attempts to run our lives on our own and entrust ourselves to God.

As important as such a connection might be, this was not the message that God had for me on that crisp fall day. My musings took me to the deeper question: What led the little creature to exercise faith? Only then did I gain a glimpse of what stands at the heart of the great mystery of trust. The crow risked all and trusted me, when he came to see me as his last and only hope.

So also with us. Ultimately, we only become willing to risk all and take the bold step of genuine faith-of entrusting ourselves to God fully, completely, unreservedly, good or for ill-when we realize that in this particular situation God is our last and only hope. And precisely this-the acknowledgment that God is my last and only hope-is what my loving, heavenly Father was seeking to instil in me through those words: "Trust me! I can help you."

In the months that followed the writing of this essay, Stan discovered that trusting God as his last and final hope meant giving up the position at Baylor University. In August 2003 he returned to Carey Theological College in Vancouver BC. His wife, Edna, continues to live out her calling as minister of worship at First Baptist Church. (For a longer account, see Stan’s Web site: www.stanleyjgrenz.com)