Trust

Trust is always a scary proposition. Why? Humans. All of us at times unintentionally and intentionally prove ourselves to be untrustworthy. Everyone that you trust will at times disappoint. Your trust will at times, by some, be taken advantage of. Some of the greatest sorrows in life come when those who above all others should have been true and trustworthy chose instead to deliberately, callously, dare I say, maliciously, betray our trust. What to do? How should one respond?
The answer is simple: trust. Think of it this way. What if the Lord quit using us as His light and salt, quit using us to take His place as His witness to the world, quit trusting us when we had proved ourselves untrustworthy? We'd all be "on the shelf," would we not? Way back in that shelf in the back of the garage. Forgotten. Labeled "useless." "This 'product' cannot be trusted to do God's work."
We need to understand that loving someone and trusting someone are inseparable. Can a love not resting on trust even exist? Sure, there will be moments of disappointment. Some times we will be the "disappointer." But as we continue to trust--and forgiveness is essential to a life of trust--love matures and grows. Deepens. In fact, we can never grasp the full depth of love until we are trusted again after we have failed to be trustworthy. Neither can those in our lives whom we are called to love unconditionally begin to understand the full measure of love until we trust them to be trustworthy after they have failed. If God continues to trust us, humans that we are (humans who have even been given the Holy Spirit to enable us!), even after we fail to be worthy of trust, how can we not continue to trust?

You see, the real reason we don't trust is because we are more in love with ourselves than we are with the other person. You call that selfishness--the worst kind of selfishness, selfish love.

Is trusting easy? Not a chance. Will you be hurt and taken advantage of at times? Undoubtedly. But you and the people in your life will never understand what it means to be loved if we don't trust. And tell me, who in your life has God called you to love as unconditionally as He loves you? Exactly.


I cannot trust and obey Him if I do not trust others.