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Regaining Trust
All the phone-hacking stuff makes it hard to trust anyone! However, trust is a vital part of being mentally healthy. Here are ten things it is helpful to know about trust. Do add your suggestions too using the comment button at the bottom.
- Trust is earned and not given or commanded. You cannot tell someone to just trust you and expect a full response just because you say so. This will be especially true if the person has once had their trust abused.
- Learning to trust involves time and experiences of trust being upheld. The Holy Spirit may be able to assist our desire and ability to trust, but it still has to be earned.
- God knows that we need accumulated evidence for us to be able to trust Him. This is one reason why often in the Bible He is introduced as 'The God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob who redeemed his people from slavery in Israel [or versions of this]. Three generations of trust, one awesome and irrefutable fact.
- Complete trust is not always possible, if a person has been very badly let down. It may be necessary to settle for the moment on partial trust, with one part of the trust being a 'trust' that this will improve with time - maybe many years.
- Trust is not the opposite of doubt. It is possible to have full trust and faith and yet still to have aspects of doubt. Somethings are just not 100% certain and doubt can even enhance faith. Trust and Faith impliy that you are choosing to believe without rock hard evidence and without brainwashing.
- Trusting again takes time. The Lord's prayer says 'forgive others AS you are yourself forgiven' - and AS can be a very big word.
- Trust can be consciously built up in a gradual manner, by initially taking small risks and then gradually increasing the risk and vulnerability. It does not just 'happen' but it can be grown.
- Trust is two-way. It is unlikely you will trust someone 100% if they do not have any trust in you. It is like a relationships. Blind trust is not really trust. Trust will 'rust' and decay over time. Like any relationship it needs to be worked at. If you are not building trust, it may be slipping away.
- Trust is in our nature - we were made to be vulnerable. Never trusting has consequences, especially for our mental health. Trusting can involve taking a risk, but usually results in relief.
- Trust can be misplaced and some people seem to see a lot of this, with successive betrayals. There are people to avoid, to be sure, but most people are trustworthy and the risk is worth it. Be careful who you trust, but do look around for the safer places.
I trust that this has been helpful to read. |
Rob Waller, 20/07/2011 |
9 Comments
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| | | qin wang | 22/07/2011 06:49 | It makes me calm and hopeful of the future.I believe what the author said in the article. I shall keep up reading it later.
| | | | jo (Guest) | 22/07/2011 08:48 | This is really helpful to me, i know God is trustworthy, but if you've grown up not being able to trust easily, feeling you can trust God can take time,yes even decades.
| | | | Helena (Guest) | 22/07/2011 15:51 | Yes, I agree that trust is earnt, not a right. I have been learning a lot about trust lately. Have just read a helpful book - Safe People by Drs Henry Cloud and John Townsend, they wrote the life-changing book - Boundaries. It's good to read about these things from a Christian perspective because we can get taught so many confusing things in our churches, and just because someone is a Christian doesn't mean they are safe to be in a relationship with.
| | | | Diana (Guest) | 22/07/2011 19:18 | Mental Health professionals talk about positive risk taking. I take this kind of risk in my everyday life as I learn to trust people again. Each small risk is a giant leap of Faith, like jumping out of a plane - with God being the parachute! It's always frightening, but more often than not I have a safe landing.
| | | | Andy (Guest) | 22/07/2011 20:40 | Could trust be a gift from someone for another to receive, rather than being 'earnt' from someone? I know this is a play an language but I think the use of the word 'earnt' implies that it is up to the receiver to get it from the giver period - a somewhat worldly way. The truth is that just as Jesus offers us as his children, his trust it is up to us to receive it and reciprocate in the context of close relationship, through mutual unconditional trust and not individualised conditional trust. Our inability to trust, for what ever reason, is therefore based on our conditionality rather than our uncondtionality.
| | | | Jemma Brown | 23/07/2011 23:36 | This is interesting for me as I have my own issues with trust, for me it is a long and slow process learning to slowly trust in others - on the other hand in certain situations I can be a little too trusting in people. Both sides of the coin have there downsides which is something I have only learnt in the last few years.
| | | | Amanda (Guest) | 10/08/2011 20:31 | I'm finding it hard to trust my fiance, he looks at other women and today I confronted him after he'd been looking at a woman behind a bar and he admitted he was sexually attracted to her. Are all men the same?
| | | | WhateverTheySay | 14/08/2011 20:46 | Trust is something that has been missing from my life for a long time. But God is constant trustworthiness. Whatever I experience in my day-to-day life, I am aware that I can trust God.
| | | | cathy wield | 08/09/2011 20:20 | Amanda, I have only just read your comment today. I don't think all men are the same and I think you were right to confront him. It is important that you resolve this issue before you marry.Are you both disciples of Jesus? If you are it might be an idea to talk to a pastor or someone you can trust, so that trust between yourselves is established from the outset.
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