trust

Trust.

Trust according to Merriam Webster is, 

“a belief that someone or something is reliable, good, honest, effective, etc.”

The other day a friend of mine posed the question: “How do you trust again? 

[After being hurt, damaged, bruised, beaten up, tortured, discarded, and broken by life and people…] How do you trust again?”

A question composed only of five words, line and circles composed across a screen in a seemingly simple arrangement. But the context of said black and white combination is anything but simple. 

I must be honest, there is a part of me that wanted to scream, “You don’t! You just freaking DON’T trust. EVER. AGAIN. Because they’re not WORTH IT. The universe and all it’s little people are just not worth it.”

That seems tempting doesn’t it? Chances are, if you’re asking this question, you have already laid a pretty decent concrete and brick foundation for the wall around your heart. 

So why not just complete the darn thing, bake yourself a pretty little cake, and enjoy the entire thing…alone?

The problem is…you’re asking the question.  And if you’re asking this question it’s because you’re still human. And the pesky thing about being human is that there comes, stamped into the fibers of our design, the very longing for connection. And connection is only oh, so superficial without that little bugger, trust.

And so we ask the question to friends over steaming cups of tea. Or we scribble the words in our journals late at night when we think no one is paying attention. Or, when we’re wise, we find our knees and ask, “Oh, God, how could I ever trust again after this? It seems impossible.”

You see this is where my new-agey, mystic friends and I split paths. The “Universe” that guides so many of their ways and pours out love to them…well, I don’t trust that universe. This is just me personally, but as far as I can see, the universe I live in is incomprehensible, mightily beautiful, and completely volatile, unpredictable, and more or less…not trustworthy.

The only way I can muster up some more trust is to know The Creator of this big Universe and the incredible love He fills it with.

It is simply the only way I have found to believe that trust is possible again. The universe alone, separate from a Father and a Savior, well, she’s not always my friend. She’s quite cantankerous actually.

And so is life. 

But then there’s Jesus, Father, Helper.

He’s the answer to trusting again.

We already noted that the question of “how do you trust again” is complex, but it’s intricacies are deeper than we can imagine. Because the question is so much more than about trusting a friend, a man, a woman. This question is about ourselves and God. 

Essentially this question becomes: “Can I trust you, God?”

And we whisper the words somewhere in the back of our hearts, longing for an answer to a question that we do not dare to ask aloud.

“Are you trustworthy? Look what has happened to me (or my child, or my spouse, or my family, or my dreams, etc.)! You allowed this! You permitted this. THIS PAIN, this heartache. How could you? You are supposed to love me and yet you let this happen? You said that I was beautiful. Now I am ruined. You said I was strong. But I have no strength now. You said I was yours. But no father let’s this happen to their child! No good father anyways.”

It’s the age old question of why bad things happen to good people. Or why a good God allows bad things to happen to anyone. I think that’s a better question. I mean, solely if we’re talking about brain-busting, heart- throbbing, unanswerable questions that is. 

So…would you like a 5 steps to trust again?

How about one step: Know God intimately.

If God is love (which He is), and His love is bigger, better, grander, deeper, higher, wider, and more supremely unconditional than you or I can fathom (which it is), and He says that you can trust Him (which He does), and that He has good plans for your life (#truth), and that He will take care of you always (He will), then worry and fear have no place in your future. [And trust does.]

Yes, easier said than done. We already know that the goods things in life always are.

You cannot yet trust anyone, the world included, until you first trust yourself. And you cannot fully trust yourself (especially after you have lived a little life and seen what a complete and total mess you can make of things when given the opportunity) until you fully trust God and what He says about Himself, about you, and about the world He created around you.

Because the truth is that deep down we know. 

We know that at our most intimate and deepest levels, we are not trustworthy. 

{Dare we say “no one” here? That black and white, leaving no room for argument definitive?} No one is fully trustworthy. There are none that I know who are wholly “reliable, good, honest, and effective.” We are, ultimately, all completely self-seeking in our humanness. It is as if I were to say, I want God’s will for my life solely because I know honoring and glorifying Him is the only purpose for my life and stopping there. But somewhere deep within the crevices of my heart I also know that God’s will is awesome and I desire awesome. Because obviously it’s awesome! Which makes me awesome. AND I WANT TO BE AWESOME!

Denying that serves no one. And teasing apart the self-seeking and the God-honoring is often impossible.

There are no guarantees.

In fact, the only guarantee there is is that most everyone you risk getting to know intimately will at some point betray your trust or disappoint you in some way.

{But not all in the most terrible ways. Not in the life-altering, soul-crushing ways that have caused you to question whether you will ever trust again.} 

Still you must drag your little rugged knees over the brick and concrete, and climb out from behind your wall to discover…it’s completely worth it.

For there, there is life.

~~~~~~~

Blessed is the man who makes

    the Lord his trust,

who does not turn to the proud,

    to those who go astray after a lie!

{Psalm 40:4}