Evie grew up in a Christian home with faithful parents. She spent plenty of time in church, especially with youth group activities. But when Evie married her high school sweetheart and they moved away together to a distant town, she lost connection with her faith community. And she didn’t quickly find comfortable new faith connections in her new hometown. The challenges of adult life, including housing, jobs, and finances, soon piled up, until Evie felt overwhelmed. She didn’t doubt God’s existence or question any of the doctrine she had learned as a youth. Yet for the first time in her life, Evie had to decide whether she could trust God. And in her challenging new season in life, Evie felt that she wasn’t so sure that she could.
Trust
For the faithful, trust is a big question to ask and answer. It’s one thing to doubt whether God exists. It’s another thing entirely to know that he exists but to question whether one can trust him in every situation. To trust is to have full confidence in an ample supply of whatever the situation calls for and whatever one needs. Trust, far underrated by most, is a precious commodity, valuable characteristic, and critical condition. We depend and rely on trust to survive. If one does not trust in at least some others, one is not likely to thrive, if even to long survive. If one does not trust in God, one must instead rely on one’s own limited and uncertain understanding. The faithful know the attributes of God. The question becomes whether we are willing to trust that God will express those attributes. The faithful trust God.
Situational
Trust is largely situational. We entrust our health to our physician, trusting in the prompt diagnosis and effective treatment of any life-threatening condition. We entrust our finances to the bank, believing in their security against theft and availability in the event of need. We entrust our investments to the financial advisor, believing in their preservation and growth to provide for us in retirement. We entrust our children to the school, believing in the integrity of its teachers and program, and its ability to educate our children. We trust our spouse to earn an income or care for the home, and we trust our pastor to visit the sick, counsel the struggling, and preach the word of God. The world proceeds on trust, without which we are lost, helpless, and unmoored. Yet ultimately, we don’t trust in the baker or candlestick maker so much as we trust in God.
Trustworthiness
Faith in God ensures an adequate supply of both trust and trustworthiness. God says to trust him. God also says to be trustworthy. God tests the trustworthiness of the faithful by first entrusting a small responsibility. Trust with a little, trust with a lot. If you are faithful in the way that you handle the small responsibility, God trusts you with more. You want your spouse to trust that you will provide more consistently and generously for your family? Then demonstrate that you can consistently supply whatever is within your reach. Your spouse will then trust you to reach for more, while God places more within your reach. You want your employer to entrust you with a promotion and pay increase? Then demonstrate that you can consistently exceed the expectations of your current work. To be trusted, you must be trustworthy.
Rewards
Trust rewards both the one who trusts and the one trusted. Trust elevates the trusted one, giving them responsibility, employment, resources, and purpose. Trust also reassures the one doing the trusting, giving them help, assistance, loyalty, commitment, and skilled services. Trust also forms, marks, and benefits a strong relationship, one that loves, cares, and endures. When rewarded and fulfilled, trust feeds the soul, forms the character, and strengthens the spirit, letting us know that we’re not alone. Trusting another lifts the fog, dissipates depression, and warms the heart and soul. Trust precedes love and obedience. Learn whom to trust, when to trust, and how to trust. Trust will then reward you with good character, abundant resources, good relationships, and a light and joyful soul.
Choosing
Not everyone deserves trust. The faithful trust wholeheartedly and unreservedly in God and his movements and desires. But the faithful discern wisely where, when, and whom to trust. The faithful are no less trusting than others. Indeed, they are generally more trusting. The faithful will put God’s provision and their own talents diligently to work, in order to earn more. But the faithful, under the Spirit’s magnanimous influence, are especially discerning about entrusting. The faithful trust only those who have the godly commitments and godlike character for trustworthiness, the capacity to exhibit it, or the readiness to embrace and develop it. The faithful do not partner with the devil. They do not sacrifice their interests to those who would steal and abuse them. Trust warrants and expects accountability. Trust is not an excuse for mischief and does not aid the ungodly.
Betrayal
Betrayals undermine trust, not just in the loss of something of value but also in the distorted ends the betrayer pursues. Betrayal is by definition the violation of trust. Yet in the case of betrayal, the violation itself is wrong. Betrayal, in other words, has an illicit cause. Betrayal requires entrusting the betrayer with something of value, whether a marriage, partnership, or friendship, investments, loans, or a borrowed valuable item, or one’s health or the care of one’s child. The greater the value of the thing entrusted, the greater the harm from the betrayal. But also, the worse the cause for betrayal, such as spite, vengeance, greed, or malice, the greater the betrayer’s offense. One might lose a business loan to a trusted friend in a reversal of the economy. But if one loses a purported business loan to the same trusted friend because the friend instead spent the money on drugs, the betrayer’s offense is far greater. Beware how betrayal by others can affect your necessary and healthy capacity to trust. And don’t betray others for the havoc your betrayal can wreak on another’s trust.
Loss
Losing either the ability to trust others or the trustworthiness of others is a serious loss. When one cannot trust any longer, whether because of betrayal, disability, or delusion, one loses hope, faith, and confidence. In a relationship, love may grow cold and the heart unsteady, until suspicion reigns. Anxieties may multiply, and fear may grow. Anger may erupt, and rage may follow. Disbelief follows the loss of trust, undermining earnest communication, undercutting faithful actions, and attributing false motives to the pure. Disbelief and doubt first poison and then kill a relationship, sowing disrespect, offending the well intentioned, and cutting off compassion, until despair rules. Beware the harm that can flow from lost trust. When others trust you, live up to the trust. When you trust others, be discerning about whom, when, and where you trust. The one who violates your trust may be principally to blame, but you may share that blame for having trusted where you should not trust.
Faithful
God is the source of our faithfulness and our trust. God restores trust. God’s character does not change, and God cannot deny his own attributes. He is therefore always and entirely trustworthy. God remains faithful even when we do not. God upholds his promises, covenanting, assuring, and then guaranteeing. God accomplishes what he promises. As God plans it, so it happens, so it becomes, and so it remains. In that sense, God is the source of our own faithfulness. We may be weak, feckless, and untrustworthy, tossed and made unreliable by challenges and circumstances. Yet when we rely on God, he gives us the foundation of faithfulness that we need. Apart from God, we have little reason to trust because God is the author of both reason and faithfulness. Truth and light are from God, while anything else is darkness. Trust in the Lord, and he will make you trustworthy.
Proof
God has utterly earned our trust. The supreme act that would engender trust would be if another gave his life to guarantee the promise. Trust wouldn’t then be taking another at their word, chancing that maybe the other wouldn’t keep the promise. To be willing to die for another resolves all questions of trust. And that is exactly what God accomplished in giving us the life of his Son. God fulfilled his promise and sealed the question of trust forever. Jesus Christ is trustworthy. Christ’s willing self-sacrifice earned our trust. His resurrection fulfilled God’s promise, with Christ’s mission accomplished. God has nothing more to prove, having already proven himself entirely reliable at the greatest possible cost. One could test God no further because he has already given his Son.
Faith
We tend to trust all manner of assurances that the world makes, based on the claims of reliable witnesses. Don’t reject reliable witnesses when the subject turns to faith. The doubting disciple Thomas refused to believe the other disciples that the resurrected Christ had appeared, even though Christ had assured that he would do so. So, Christ appeared again to doubting Thomas, offering that Thomas touch Christ to ensure that he was real. Yet Christ admonished Thomas and us that believing only what we can personally touch isn’t a rewarding faith. Christ added that God instead blesses those who will not touch him but will instead believe the record of the witnesses who did. Trust the witnesses, and trust God with your believing faith. Trust God, and rely on him. God gave you a fabulous gift of trustworthy faith, at the exorbitant cost of his Son.
Reflection
To what degree do you trust God? Would you trust God with your life? Doesn’t your life depend on God whether or not you grant him that trust? What expectations do you have of God in which you trust? Are the things you expect of him things that he promises you? Or are they things outside of his will? Looking around you at what God has provided, do you see evidence on which to place your further trust? Recall a time when someone violated your trust. Was it a betrayal for an illicit cause? How did the violation affect you? In retrospect, should you have trusted the person under the circumstances as you then understood them? Did your loss from the violation affect your ability or willingness to trust others whom you should trust? Recall an instance when you were untrustworthy. Did you betray the trust? Have you made amends as far as you are able? How did your violation of trust affect your reputation and relationships? Do you trust in the good news of Jesus Christ or are you, like doubting Thomas, wanting to see him first hand?
Key Points
To trust is to have confidence in an ample supply for the situation.
Trust generally involves specific expectations in specific situations.
God ensures an adequate supply of both trust and trustworthiness.
God rewards trust with supply and trustworthiness with responsibility.
Choose whom to trust and when to trust, while always trusting God.
Betrayed trust harms the betrayed interest and destroys the trust.
To be trustworthy is to lose opportunity, respect, and relationship.
Lost trust undermines communication, intentions, and actions.
God is always trustworthy and the source of faithfulness and trust.
God proved himself trustworthy in his Son’s sacrifice and resurrection.
Believing faith trusts the witnesses to Christ’s resurrection.
Faith, trusting in God’s promises, is God’s free gift at great cost.