Riding the waves:
Here's a man, standing in the ocean, seeking to enjoy the power of the waves. Most of the waves are small things, sweeping past without much notice, but every now and then a gorgeous monster of a wave approaches.
Here comes one now.
The swell is epic, the height immense. It advances upon him, inexorably, towering above. He looks up, way up, and marvels at the total lack of fear.
It arrives. He takes a breath and rises, effortlessly borne aloft by the very thing that signaled doom.
Another man, not trusting the reality of the wave lifting him, gibbers in fear as it towers over him. He turns and madly thrashes away, trying to flee. Panicked and despairing, he has only brought what he feared down upon him, as the wave crests and crashes down, driving him to the sand below.
In life, Hashem is the One who brings the tzarah. It advances, getting ever nearer, looking more and more terrifying. One who has bitachon will face it without fear. He knows that the very thing that looks to be his downfall will in fact lift him smoothly up and over, depositing him whole, without a hair out of place, on the other side. Yet he who tries to run from it, to desperately get away, will instead invite the tzarah to crash down on his head.
Ride the waves. It's way more fun. And you'll learn something about Hashem in so doing.
Riding the stroller
We tend to think of ourselves as adults, and relate to Hashem as adults talking to their King or Father. Challenging that, lets instead think of ourselves as toddlers, babies, in the care of our Father. And to bring out the idea a bit more, let’s use a stroller as an analogy.
Life is a walk in a stroller. A child in a stroller rolling down a clear smooth well-paved jogging path has no reason at all to think about or be aware of the person pushing the stroller. But if its a bumpy trail, and the child is subjected to sudden and abrupt turns to avoid obstacles, he will be very aware that there is someone back there handling things.
Since the point of existence is to become aware of Hashem, it is obviously a waste of our lives to have a smooth easy path to coast down as it’ll be very difficult to become aware of the pusher. The looming catastrophe isn’t a failure of the system, it’s the system working, Hashem giving us an opportunity.
Emunah is the knowledge that you aren’t yourself pushing your stroller along, but instead are being pushed and steered. Bitachon is the emotional security this engenders, the reliance upon He who is pushing and steering.
The child in the stroller is utterly unable to directly see the pusher, the hood is down and he is buckled in tight. He is able to discern the existence of the pusher not from the straight uninterrupted rolls but from the redirects and shifts.
It is specifically the veering away from an obstacle that is instructive to the inquiring child - it is through the yeshua that we come face to face with Hashem. So to speak.
The kid in the stroller has zero ability to affect the path that the stroller takes. He can amuse himself with distractions, even turn a toy wheel and imagine that he is steering, but ultimately whatever he does makes no difference to the outcome.
People sometimes think of Hashem as far off, looking on from way above. But in truth He is right here with us, more aware of pending problems than we are, and more concerned for our welfare than we are. He’s right here, pushing the stroller.
Hashem is an Author
Here's a fellow. He's writing a book. It's a fiction novel and he's been working on it for 13 years. In that time he's conceived of and brought to life a bevy of characters, each with their own plotline and growth-struggle-redemption arc. Over the years he's endowed each character with unique idiosyncrasies and individual voices - it's gotten so that sometimes he just needs to get his head where his character is at and the lines write themselves. He's formed a real bond with the people in his story, and wants them to succeed and do well.
Now, instead of it being a human filling the role of 'author' let's look at this with Hashem as the Author. In a way, Hashem has been writing a book for the last 5784 years. There's an overarching plot and individual sub plots, quite a few acts and characters that rise up and dominate the story for a time until they are replaced.
Now, there's a major difference between a human author and the Divine. We are unable to endow our characters with agency and free will. Any semblance of choice is necessarily a façade. However, Hashem is not limited in this way and He has granted us this enormous gift and responsibility. Of course, the self-determination His characters are given is restricted solely to their ability and willingness to break the fourth wall, to figure out that there is an Author and see His workings upon the plot. They struggle to comprehend that they are but fictional characters with plot lines Divinely written. Instead they all too often succumb to the illusion and think that they are driving the plot, charting their own course. Hashem, in His kindness, responds to such silly notions by letting them think that they are right, and adapting the plot accordingly.
Of course, as the Author, He exists on an entirely different plane of existence, one that the characters can't understand, relate to, or comprehend. So the most powerful and most efficient method for the Author to communicate with the characters is through the plot itself. And if they would but look around and notice they'd see how the Author is talking to them.
There's another aspect of this that is quite lovely. Imagine a book that had no resolution, where Frodo and Sam fail in their quest, dooming middle earth. When you start a good book, you are trusting the author to treat you right and leave you satisfied at the last page. If you were not confident and at peace with the knowledge that the author will take care of you and give the main characters a happy ending, you wouldn't bother reading. And when you know how the book ends, you know that you just have to get through those few chapters where things are less than great because you, the reader, understands why its necessary and how the suffering serves the ultimate goal.
I'm sure there's plenty more depth to be mined from this - what do you think?
Life is a game
Here you have a 2d scroller with puzzles and bad guys to kill. you are trying to get to the end. Now imagine if there were no puzzles and no bad guys, no obstacles, nothing in your way. You just held down the key and watched. Such a game, nobody would play! There's nothing enjoyable, satisfying, purposeful. Which means that its the obstacles, the challenges that are the point, not merely the stuff in the way of the point.
When the game centers on one character, there are often loads of NPCs that are just part of the context, that don't relate to the player and about whom the player does not care. But the main character is the one that responds to the player's commands, who acts out the will of the player. And indeed the player wants very much that only good things should happen to the main character.
Here's something that's particularly apparent in 3d games - if you can go somewhere, interact with something, open a door - it's because there's something there for you to do, accomplish, experience, level up, etc. If a door is closed to you it's either because there's nothing behind it or because given where you are you are not ready to advance to whatever is waiting.
Everything in a game is built around helping you advance, giving you opportunities to level up, but nothing comes easy. You never just turn a corner and find an epic weapon - you've gotta fight for it, find it, solve a puzzle and so on. Everything costs something and nothing good comes easy. That being said, the basic necessities, ammo, health, food, etc - these are guaranteed to be waiting wherever you'll need them, as if fallen from Heaven, free for the taking and sufficient for those who don't misuse these resources.
Many games do not tell you your score or your standings - they may not reveal the objectives completed, the percentage of treasure found, the number of secret rooms remaining to be discovered. You have to wait till you die to find out these things. Instead the purpose of the experience is to finish the level, kill the boss, break Blazkowicz out of the prison and find the elevator. And that's all perfectly fine. but the people who take it really seriously? They don't rest until they've ticked every box, found all the treasure, filled in the whole map and absolutely maxed out their standing in the rankings.
Driving your wife
I of course do not have any direct experience with this, but ive heard second hand that sometimes when husbands are driving, their wife will look up from whatever they were doing and gasp loudly when they see brake lights, thinking they are about to die. The husband, who has been calmly decelerating for the last 100 feet, is perfectly aware that there are cars stopped ahead and is very on top of the situation. And so it can happen that the wife not implicitly trusting her husband with her life can have a negative emotional effect on the husband.
In life we sometimes look up and notice brake lights ahead and freak out. This is not complimentary to Hashem. In fact it makes it seem like we don’t trust Him very much. But the reality is that He is far more aware of the issues than we are, as He is also far more aware of the yeshua He’s been cooking up since before the issue began. He also cares more about our safety and well being than we do. So maybe it’s time to give Him a break and chill.