Restoring Trust

The foundation of all relationships is trust.

This is not my original idea. Actually, if you look up the definition of the word trust on google, the two contextual examples given have to do with relationships. One is "relations have to be built on trust," and the other "a relationship built on mutual trust and respect." Trust is one of those words that is associated with relationships. "Do you trust me?" "You broke my trust." "I didn't trust him." "Trust me." These are the words that pepper our conversations as we step into and out of relationships and dig deeper into them.

What is the definition of trust? According to Merriam Webster, trust means "firm belief in the character, strength, or truth of someone." When we are children, we typically learn trust first with our parents. I still remember my dad holding the back of my bike and propelling me forward as I pedaled frantically on a two-wheeled bike for the first time. Why did I let him help launch me into this seemingly impossible ride? Because I trusted that he knew how to help me and, if I fell, he would be there to help me back up. As a child, I was born into a relationship in which I depended on my parents and had every reason to believe they would take care of me and tell me the truth.

As I grew, I learned what it meant to lose trust in people, as we all do. I saw the cracks in people's characters. I was lied to. I heard stories of fathers leaving their families and revealing an alternate life they had been hiding. A healthy fear grew in my heart and warned me that, while my parents and siblings were given to me, I could choose the other people I let into my life. I learned to hold off on trusting people until I had been able to fully measure their character. Like picking out a mango or melon at the grocery store, you can smell and squeeze and survey, but you never really know what the value of the fruit is until you cut into it. You have to see to the core. At a certain point, we learn that it's very dangerous to trust until we've seen this core.

We may define ourselves as the trusting kinds - the ones who will believe anything our friends tell us; I am frequently nodding my head along with someone's story only to be laughed at a moment later over my gullibility in believing some twisted tale or outlandish fact. However, this kind of gullible trust is no indicator of how trusting we are in all aspects of life. Another test of our tendency to trust is the extent of our independence. Are we more willing to step out on our own than to join ourselves closely with another person? Is the fear of what could be exposed and crushed within a relationship more real than the fear of finding ourselves alone and left to comfort and entertain ourselves on a Friday night? The sense of control when you do not have to think about trusting someone else is addictive. You seek your personal joy every day, choosing how you would most like to spend your time (even if your choices are worthy pursuits), without the worry and fear that comes with trying to please another or wishing that they would do a better job of pleasing you. You please yourself and worry only about disappointing yourself. It's a mirage of freedom and happiness that most of us realize we must abandon at some point in favor of relationship. And yet, with relationship, comes the issue of trust.

I'm not just speaking of romantic relationships. Even in friendships, there is a line you cross in which you allow yourself to be exposed, to really trust that person with a story from your past or a confession about the worries or dark thoughts in your mind. You walk away from that conversation with a slight panic. Did I say too much? Will they tell someone else? Will they still like me now that they know this? And then, maybe you get that phone call or note the next day, reassuring you that they still want to see you and that they will keep checking in. Or, maybe one time or twenty times, that call never came, and you felt like you left your heart in the middle of Jason's Deli over a giant baked potato.

This moment of exposure costs more than a thousand priceless, affirmative phone calls. We harbor that betrayal of our trust, even a non-threatening silence in response to our divulging conversation, as a signpost reminding us to beware. And a few significant signposts can result in a wall, a wall of non-disclosure and independence.

So what does it look like for someone to breach the wall or for us to step outside the gates? There is an image I am always returning to when I fear the strength of my own wall. Of course its source is literary and perhaps will not speak to all as it speaks to me.

Unless you are an avid fan of Charlotte Bronte or gothic novels, it is doubtful that you have picked up Charlotte's novel Villette. A number of years ago, I became swept away by this novel of a school teacher setting out on her own in a strange foreign land (not a far cry from my own life now). Although I remember little of novel's plot, I will never forget this one quote, expressing the thoughts of the protagonist soon after her arrival.

"In the double gloom of tress and fog; I could only follow his tread. Not the least fear had I; I believe I would have followed that frank tread, through continual night, to the world's end."

The images captivated me. The darkness and gloom. The vastness of the world's end. And that frank tread.

The words "frank tread" in particular struck me because they imply an honest, determined walk. Candid and straightforward combined with action and sense of purpose. It's an unusual paring of words.

When we talk about trust, we might work up to the point of sitting and facing someone and mutually sharing sensitive information about ourselves. But, if we begin to talk about following someone, the wall of wariness that must be broken down becomes infinitely higher. To follow someone voluntarily and without fear requires an incredible amount of trust. It makes sense that the girl of Charlotte Bronte's novel had no choice but to follow since it was night and the place was unfamiliar. What is striking is that she had no fear and that she went so far as to say she would continue following past the point of requirement to the very world's end.

I think of course of human relationships and what it means to speak these words about someone. If we were able to speak such words of trust and to follow another's footsteps because we knew they were true and honest, it would be nothing short of a miracle. And that's what deep, trust-based relationships are: miracles. We diminish them if we consider them anything less than that.

And I think of God. I think of how we are most certainly living in the darkness and gloom of this life. Of course, there are rays of sunshine peaking their way through, but we are living in a shroud of finiteness. We are limited in what we see to our visible surroundings and the present time. We can predict using various logical methods and calculations and instincts, but what we know is just our own feeble bodies. Even those, we barely know. How long they will keep running like machines, taking breaths without our bidding?

We either accept what we know and seize pleasure while we can or we crouch in fear and refuse to move. Or, we hear the "frank tread" of God up ahead, and we decide to follow. And the problem is that we cannot cut God to the core like we can a melon, to see what he is made of. We cannot even truly get to the core of another human being. And God is unknowable in his entirety.

So why should we trust him for the next few steps, not to mention to the world's end? Perhaps, we could consider that he was there from the beginning even before our parents knew us. He was offering himself to us, trying to show us how much we depended on him, how much we needed this relationship with him. We can choose to trust our parents in propelling us forward for the first time on our two-wheeled bikes, but who do we trust when we are swimming through a sea of life-shaping decisions and unforeseen circumstances?

Not only was God there at the beginning, seeking to gain our trust by revealing our utter dependance on him for everything, but God has also given us these promises and pictures of what it looks like when we live in relationship with him. There is no more perfect image of trust than the picture of him walking with and leading us through the treacherous paths of life.

"But now thus says the Lord, he who created you...he who formed you, O Israel: 'Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called ou by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through the fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your savior.. Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you...Fear not for I am with you." Isaiah 43:1-5

"The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me" Psalm 23:1-4

If we enter into a relationship with God, he demands that we trust him. And, when we trust him, we enter into beautiful, freeing, life-giving relationship with him. Trust forms the bookends of our relationship with God, both what initiates and sustains it. Trust in him is the only safe, unbreakable trust.

To follow God is to follow a frank tread in the darkness and gloom without a hint of fear. To follow God is to trust him that, along this often scary road, we will find green pastures and still waters. Instead of the chipping away of our souls that broken trust imparts, he will lead us into the restoration of our souls. To trust him is to invite the miracle of relationships with others. With such deep security in him, we can afford to risk our hearts in relationships with a few well-chosen people. We can see a glimpse of his faithfulness in the way those chosen ones walk, and we choose to trust them, all the while keeping our eyes on him, our perfect guide.