I have a theory. It is not a popular theory, it often angers people. For a couple years now I have been pondering and studying. I think now is the time to start writing about it. Here goes:
Trust was never meant for our human relationships.
The first time I heard this I was quite confused and sat there with my jaw hanging open. I immediately thought……no way. How could that be true? It clearly is a bi-product of human behavior, not a choice. If this was true it would change things, not just slightly. It would be a massive overhaul of almost every relationship I had. The more I pondered and the more deep I got into the subject the more excited I became. I will start with how I first came to this possible revelation.
A couple years ago my husband and I had gotten into a little argument, nothing I can even remember the cause of. I was upset and even after a heartfelt apology from him I still couldn’t get over it. This was unusual for me. I had been in training under Jesus for years and attempting to walk in forgiveness. It normally was not even difficult to forgive before an apology. This was different. My husband did one of the best moves a husband can make in this situation and just held me in bed. I began to cry, and asked God silently what to do. He told me to forgive Shane. Still in my head, I responded with but I have forgiven him. He then said I want you to forgive him for everything he has ever done. So that’s what I did. Out loud, I began to forgive him for every possible offense I could have had and as I did I cried louder and louder and felt better, and better.
After the long list was out and I had cried to the point of relief I started up my conversation with God again. I thanked him, I felt much better. I also expressed my confusion. This was not the first time I had done this very act. I had been attempting to walk in forgiveness, to forgive freely and quickly. To this He said,” You know that list you have in your head….the list of things Shane has done, I want you to tear it up and throw it away.” My knee jerk response was, well, “how am I supposed to know whether or not I can trust him.” He replied simply, “I never asked you to trust him, I asked you to trust me.”
This is where my jaw was hanging open and all the while lying next to my husband having a silent conversation with God. He thankfully didn’t seem to notice, or at least he wasn’t looking at me like a complete fool. My first thought was:
If it was even possible, then what would this mean for our relationship?
If Shane walked through the door after a long day at work and was met with a clean slate. Instead of a list of things he had done wrong. Some days I met him with the list in hand and started to share the list. That always went well. Other days I had it in my pocket and only referred to it if I felt like it was needed. Some days I didn’t think about it at all………those were the days were I felt the best. Often it wasn’t even Shane’s actions that resulted in the list being brought out; it was my feelings that day. How secure did I feel not how many things went on the list. I realized I only pull out the list when I am feeling bad about myself, or like I am not getting what I need in the relationship. Now you might think, wow, how unforgiving and vindictive can you get? Trying or not that is clearly not walking in forgiveness. But you’re mistaken; the purpose of the list was not to condemn Shane. It was to protect me. I have been hurt…….just like we all have….so many times. Not just from Shane but from so many people and this list that I kept was to protect me from being hurt. It was an indicator…….like a thermostat. It read how much trust I could have for Shane.
If it read that things were at a comfortable level I was able to greet him with excitement and respect would just flow easily. If the level was uncomfortable or even red zone I had a hard time even greeting him. I would have barriers and walls and respect was much harder to give. Although remember I was trying to be unconditionally forgiving and even unconditionally respectful (which is a whole other topic that many books have been written about). This is clearly not what Jesus wanted for my life. He asks us to love Him with all our hearts and then love others. He never said to love Him with all of yourself and then love others depending on how trustworthy they are. When Shane would arrive home at the end of the day instead of seeing the truth:
‘Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old has gone, the new is here!’ -2 Corinthians 5:17
Is this what I felt when Shane walked through the door? Absolutely not. Should it be? Yes, I believe so. What had been getting in the way of this was my dependency on if I could trust him or not. So it seemed clear to me that if I could get rid of this list then it could possible make a huge difference in my marriage. It could be huge difference in how I treated my husband, and probably a huge difference in how he felt about himself. The damage that had already been done to his self-esteem in the name of trust seemed like it could be great. The next question that came to mind was:
If you got rid of the list, and didn’t need to rely on trust, then how could I ever tell if I needed to make decisions to protect myself?
I am very fortunate to be in a non-abusive marriage. At times it’s neglectful on both our parts, in the name of self-preservation, but not abusive. I have been in abusive relationships before and needed to make a call to get out of the situation. So if trust wasn’t a factor then how would we make decisions? Was it even possible? I believe there are two words that answer this question, discernment and boundaries. Discernment can have several meanings; I am using it as the process of determining God’s desire in a situation or for one’s life. I believe there are many ways God could let you know what His will for your life. I believe the best way to approach this is through reading the Bible and prayer.
‘If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.’ –James 1:5
Boundaries are something talked about in counseling often. There are even a few books with that as the title. Personal boundaries are guidelines, rules or limits that a person creates to identify for themselves what are reasonable, safe and permissible ways for other people to behave around him or her and how they will respond when someone steps outside those limits. For example: John and Jane are married, John is an alcoholic. He gets abusive and destructive when he drinks. Jane has been hurt many times. She, on advice from her counselor, sets the boundary that if John chooses to drink then she will leave. She will pack and stay at her sister’s house until he has gone through treatment. It is up to John to stop drinking but it is up to Jane whether or not she will put up with it.
Boundaries do not involve trust because it is clear that John is untrustworthy when it comes to drinking. He has proven over and over that he will drink. He also proves frequently that he will be abusive when he is drinking. There is no reason for Jane to trust John with this. If she was to trust that he wouldn’t drink she would be setting herself up for heartache and most likely she has built many walls to protect herself from this kind of disappointment.
So it seems as if it would be possible to make smart, well informed decisions not dependent on whether or not you can trust someone. Another example would be:
You meet a stranger on the street who smells of alcohol. You have your four year old and two year old with you and an arm full of groceries. You are really struggling and this stranger could really help you by watching one of your children while you get the other and the food in the car. But can you trust him? WHAT! That’s not even a question in your mind. You have no idea who this man is and would never leave one of your babies with him. Trust doesn’t matter, you know it would be unsafe and you have boundaries. What’s more is this could be the most trustworthy man alive and it wouldn’t matter. Which brings me to my next thought……
Getting back to the trust thermostat, the list of ways people have hurt us. It’s really what helps us make decisions whether and not to trust people. It’s what has been built on since we were infants, learning to trust that our parents will be there or believe that we will be neglected. Helps us decide how much to let someone in or keep them away. I picture a scale.
No trust………………………………………………………Shane……………………………………………………………All trust
Let’s say I trust my husband at somewhere right in the middle of this scale. He has really gained my trust in the aspect of not cheating on me but he does hurt me often with his words. He’s not verbally abusive but sometimes he’s self-consumed and doesn’t seem to care how my day is. He is short with me and it hurts me. In my experience he hurts me let’s say twice a week. So I can only trust him this much. He ranks about the half way mark, I know he will hurt me again but I know he will try and make the best choices for us.
Then I picture my best friend, Sara, on this trust list. She is there whenever she can be there to listen, she agrees with almost everything I say, and I can almost always count on her. She is someone I trust with most all of my thoughts.
No trust…………………………………………………………………………………………….Sara……………………….All trust
Would I want to live with Sara? No. Would I want to marry Sara? No. I am not as intimate or dependent with Sara as I am with Shane. So it’s much easier for Sara to gain more trust. She doesn’t have nearly as much responsibility to me as I demand from my husband. If I tried to get a hold of Sara on the phone for 24 hours with no reply I would think, she’s really busy. If I tried to get ahold of my husband for 24 hours with no reply…………well let’s not even discuss that.
So the trust scales we have are completely dependent on intimacy and what I require from someone. Also it is not indicative of how trustworthy they actually are because God is all trusting. He deserves all of our trust………He is always faithful and always comes through and despite that truth we have to work hard at trusting Him. Then it dawned on me……….the scales we use to judge whether or not we can trust are based on our injury. Not on the truth of Christ but the works the enemy has done in our lives. We are born trusting……..We are not worried that our parents will feed us and love us. We just ask and receive. If that doesn’t happen then it causes serious problems and serious injuries. No doubt even if you have the best parents on the planet they are not perfect and trust will be broken, even if it’s just perceived that way. How many times have we gotten our feelings hurt believing something then come to find out it was a complete misunderstanding. Or that we never took into consideration what the other person was going through. Here is a fictional but realistic story to make my point.
A six year old boy was waiting after school to get picked up by his mom, she arrives an hour late. While waiting, the boy is scared, and the enemy uses this to get to get to him. His mom is hurt, or she must not care, and maybe she doesn’t love him. When she arrives she even seems distracted, she apologizes and hugs him but also not the reaction that the boy expects. He has in his brain from that point that mom isn’t as trustworthy as she seemed so maybe no one is and has serious trust issues when it comes to people being there when they said they were going to be. The mother is late because she found out her husband is cheating on her that very day and tries to get herself together before picking up the boy she loves so much. She knows he is safe at school and spends the hour she is late trying to stop crying and put on a smile. She would never tell the boy that, it would cause harm to him.
Ok, so this is made up but it’s really not that far-fetched. We live in a world where this stuff happens. There is a bigger picture and so rarely do we ever get to see it. We also have the enemy right there to deceive us and make us feel unsafe and unloved and small. He has been conditioning us to be dysfunctional and depend on our own understanding. This is what our trust scales are…….they are our own understanding. It’s a judgment coming from a dysfunctional past. The whole scale is a lie, because if it wasn’t then God would be trusted 100% of the time with 100% of ourselves and if that was the case it wouldn’t matter at all if we could trust others or not.
So at this point I was fairly convinced that He had me onto something. My next step was to do a word study and in depth Bible study. My results will be in Part Two of The Trust Lie.
Worshipful Living 