I still feel like I’m in vacation mode. We had people drop by and stay for a couple of days, so the party continues! Plus my websites were down for a couple of days. That was freaking me out. But all is well now.
I’ve been thinking about trust.
There’s a lot of pressure on us to trust people.
We get it from our teachers:
We are taught that we should always trust people. You know the verse we hear at every wedding from 1 Corinthians 13, the “love chapter”, that “Love always trusts.” If we don’t trust a certain person, then that means we don’t love them. And if we don’t love them then God doesn’t love us. I’ve dealt with a lot of guilt because I haven’t trusted people in the way I felt a Christian should.
We get it from others:
People want our trust. I don’t know how many times someone has expressed disappointment and dismay because I couldn’t or wouldn’t trust them or someone they recommended the way they felt I ought to. I’m an easy person to guilt!
We get it from ourselves:
Because of the teaching we’ve received, because of the expectations of others, and because we want to be good, don’t want to displease God, and don’t want to offend anybody, enormous pressure builds up inside our hearts to trust people even when our guts are shouting “CAUTION!”
But it doesn’t have to be this way!
I’ve learned that it is wise to trust people at the level they can be trusted. This is not only good for me, but respectful of them.
Let me explain:
I used to have a motorcycle… a ’79 Suzuki GS850. I loved it. I took my daughter Casile for a ride on the back of it one day. She asked if she’d be able to try driving it. I said no, of course, because it takes a lot of training, testing and experience before someone can be trusted to drive a motorcycle.
I’ll say it again. She had no…
- training
- testing
- experience
To trust her to drive my motorcycle would have been foolish and dangerous. She would have hurt herself and others and likely brought grief to many. I said no to protect her, to protect others, and to protect myself. Never mind the bike!
When it comes to personal relationships issues though, I often feel my Christian sensibilities rising up when I’m asked to trust someone more than they are capable of handling. Guilt raises its ugly head and says that I’m unloving, petty, and not spiritual if I refuse to trust them.
But now I know how to handle it. I just tell myself, “It would be unfair to them and unfair to me to trust them with more than they can handle. People will get hurt if I do, including them. So no, I will not entrust them with this.”
“This”. What is “this”? I’m not talking about motorcycles or other possessions, although that is included. I’m talking about information.
It’s almost always information. It’s almost always personal information about ourselves.
I don’t know how many times I’ve entrusted someone with information about myself that they couldn’t handle. That is, they couldn’t deal with the information about me that offended them, shocked them, or disappointed them. Or they found it so juicy that they just had to tell other people about it.
Of course, I’m not even talking about dealing with our own trust issues at this point. That’s a whole other topic. What I’m talking about here is YOUR RIGHT and YOUR RESPONSIBILITY to discern and decide at what level to trust a person, no matter where you are at on the trust issue scale!
So here’s my advice:
- Don’t let a teacher tell you who to trust and how much to trust them with.
- Don’t let a person demand your trust, even if they are in your life.
- Don’t let guilt force you into trusting more than you are comfortable with.
Just trust yourself to know. TRUST YOUR GUT!
Let’s start with that.
Peace on your path my wonderful friends!
David