REAL Trust

Thanks again to all of the ladies who joined us last evening. I thought the discussion was good, even in spite of the fact that I felt like was doing most of it. Trust is such a difficult and personal topic. We can be surrounded at times by the image that you can trust no one but your self. Trusting others is a risk, but one that is needed to develop the relationships that are vital for the success of God's mission here on earth.

We saw in Joseph a time where trusting would be difficult and how his response showed something of his character. We saw how God stepped in and helped him trust, which ended with Joseph trusting in both his future wife and his God.

God does not ask us to live in a way that He did not demonstrate himself. Christ entrusted His disciples with the work of the kingdom, knowing that we would not always succeed. Which makes me think of a quote from Mother Teresa "God has not called me to be successful. God has called me to be faithful." As we trust in Him in this walk, He will strengthen us on our way. We can continue to trust in Him even if we are not surrounded by success.

We had two application paths this week. The first suggestions are for those who are currently facing an issue of trust with another person. (I will caveat this with use these steps with someone who may have acted "out of character," re-establishing trust with a habitual offender is a much more complicated process and not the scope of our discussion)

• Talk through the situation that is causing your mistrust. Be open with the person about where you were hurt. Try to understand potential influences to the situation that you may not have thought of before. How was the trust lost?
• Affirm something in that person. They may have hurt you now, but they have done other things that were beneficial. Affirmation will help rebuild confidence.
• Ask them to do a small task. Make it achievable to ensure success. Baby steps!

Let me give an illustration to this issue as it relates to children. . I believe all of us want our children to treat others respectfully, tell the truth , and in general "be good." Inevitably they will mess up - occasionally in a very dramatic fashion. Trust is lost. Do we abandon the relationship? Probably not. So we follow these steps, discuss the loss of trust and pinpoint how that came to be, affirm other actions they have done well (because we all respond better to praise than criticism), and them we give them a small task to succeed at, to get back on the road of trust. I have followed this path with my son as it relates to school behavior and I have seen it in parents of teens as it relates to curfew violations and the situations that some teens fall into by friend association. We walk this road of re-establishment with our children. It would be a worthy road to walk with our brothers/sisters in Christ.

For those who currently have no fences to mend right now I suggested another track. God calls us all to something. We must trust in Him sometimes to take a step towards that "ministry" - be it with children, teens, elderly, shut-in,impoverished conditions, mentally challenged, physically challenged, encouragement of the body, and I think you get the picture. Let this be a little push. TRUST GOD! Do something - don't wait for the perfect situation before acting - act anyway. For this track I suggest the following steps

• Talk with someone about where you feel you are being led. If you don't know, ask a trusted friend or mentor. They probably do know. Gifts in others are often easier to see than the ones in ourselves.
• Tell someone in a ministry how they have been an example to you. Everyone needs encouragement. Thank them for doing what they do and leading by example.
• Do something small in the area of your interest. This can be a phone call, an Internet search, some volunteer time, anything.

I hope you have a great week and be sure to check in again on Tuesday, where maybe I will write less and you can get done reading faster. :)