THE ART OF TRUST
airplane if we didn’t “trust” that other people took their respon- sibilities seriously, and would obey whatever rules applied to the endeavor at hand. We trust that other drivers will stay in their lanes, that conductors and pilots will be sober and alert. And that people will generally do their best to discharge their obligations toward us. Culture, civilization, and community all depend on such trust.^21
A lack of trust leads to paranoia on our part. This concept has been written about in business articles and books and has been dealt with in counseling sessions all across this country. If we are going to take a step beyond acquain- tance to friend, the gap of mistrust must be bridged between two people. This applies in all of life—from family to friends to nations of the world.
But trust requires that we take certain risks. For example, when you sit down on a chair, there is always a risk the chair has a flaw and will not be able to hold you. There is a reason why business coaches and motivational speakers will use the trust-fall exercise. When you stand with your back facing someone, and you begin to fall backward, there is a risk that your partner won’t catch you. When the child jumps off the stairs or the edge of the pool, he trusts his parent will be there to catch him. He is risking his own safety at times.
Some people would never walk out of their house, because they don’t want to risk sickness, hurt, pain, discomfort, or anything that would adversely affect them. Fear can and will cripple us. Fear has a way of working its way into our relationships—from past hurts, past betrayals, broken trust, and many other relational issues and conflicts.
When a marital trust is broken, the fear becomes the idea that the person we are married to can never be trusted again. The fear can also become the thinking that anyone I may get close to will break that trust again. We can then choose never to trust anyone fully again.
The risk, then, comes in taking the step, the leap, to trust others in relation- ship. However, may I suggest that trust in a relationship works best when in a relationship with God first? When we love and trust God first, all of our other relationships can be placed into perspective. When we love others as we love ourselves, we prove trustworthy, and trust in our relationships becomes more transparent.
We also have to be very aware of the standards and expectations we put on people. Trust requires that our standards are reasonable and our expecta- tions are fair. Standards become those non-negotiables in our lives that form the basis for how we live and what we desire others to meet to have a relationship with us. For example, being truthful even when difficult can be a standard we