Friday, June 06, 2008

The Issue of Trust

I don't even really know when it happened. I just realized one day that I don't think about trusting people anymore. God has completely freed me from that burden of questioning people, guessing at motives, of being suspicious. People are people. Even the most mature, wise, fruit-bearing, self-sacrificing, joyful, delightful people are still just people--flawed, imperfect people. I can't trust myself, whom I know better than anyone else on the planet. So how can I trust someone else, even if they believe that they are trustworthy? But I do trust them. It's another one of those beautiful God paradoxes.

It's so cut-and-dried as to be humorous in its simplicity. It doesn't matter that people aren't trustworthy, because God is. I can trust God. I do trust God.

I trust that He is on the perfect side of good all the time and cannot be otherwise, ever. I trust that He has a plan that He is working out down to the tiniest seen and unseen details every day according to His sovereign, omniscient knowledge of the big picture. I trust that even when I make mistakes, when I've believed lies to be truth, when I've failed myself and others, when other people are cruel and unreasonable and have failed themselves and others, God in His glorious grace and limitless mercy, can and does work in and through those things.

4 comments:

Joseph Pulikotil said...

I was happy to read your inspirational write up on trusting people. Trusting God is easy and even the most calous criminal trusts God. How to trust a fellow human being? This is a very difficult thing to answer.

I have been conned several times in my life. Have you not been conned so far by people whom you trusted?

Have a good day!

Mel said...

Greetings, Joseph! It's nice to "meet" you! :)

Yes, I certainly have been conned, betrayed, let down, and lied to by people, even people I love and whom I know love me. And I wouldn't trade any of those experiences, because God has used each one of them to draw me closer to Himself.

Bless you!

Joseph Pulikotil said...

I admire you. You are very religious and have such unshakable faith in God.

May God bless you and shower upon you all happiness and succes!

Mel said...

Thank you, Joseph! May He bless you in the same way! :)