Restoring Trust in Relationships

4/10/2001

… I also had a question… over the last year or so there have been a number of times when folks whom we trusted and felt that we were able to live as brothers and sisters in open, Godly relation with have attacked me personally. We have endeavored to forgive and to get on with life. However, while we feel no animosity towards the people involved, we have found that we do not have the confidence to pick up where we left off but rather we sense the need to let the trust that has been broken grow again.

The question… I have always seen that trust is a fragile commodity and once broken takes time to grow again. What do you understand about this?

love to you all

I’m sorry to hear of the pain on various fronts. That is hard stuff, always. Sometimes we all feel as if we are “men of sorrows, ACQUAINTED with grief.” OR, beyond grief as an “acquaintance”—it’s our best friend and constant companion, and WISH it were merely an acquaintance! : ) Hard stuff. And, even with the knowledge that it works for Good, the pressures in it all can seem close to unbearable at times. Does that sound like experience speaking? : )

Anyway : ), perhaps it would be possible to find a way to view the personal attacks as something different. Sometimes it is important to try to view the attacks as attacking “what we do” rather than “who we are”—and keep those two things TOTALLY separate. The first is okay for anyone to question, for there is always room and need for change there. The second is hidden in Christ, and is unshakeable anyway, so they only MEANT to attack the first and not the second. We can look at the “what we do” or “what we think” as entities outside of ourselves, rather than allowing anything to feel “personal” when things get testy, as they always must in the “Business” that Jesus has given to His Priesthood. And the ladies can see the Grace of that, too, I bet. Just a thought. Nothing new, but maybe it is a thought to revisit during the tough times.

As for trust—I do know it does take time and can’t be legislated. There is another factor though, I think. And that is, it is always the enemy’s desire that imaginations and distance (which seldom “makes the heart grow fonder”) tend to frequently bring permanent separation and distrust. In that “time passing” scenario, it seems fruitful on one level. And it spares us having to think about it all of the time, and feel badly for it. Often, the energy of the “differences” do, in fact, diminish over time—where two could speak to one another easily enough eventually. Still, though, more often than not, the closeness and ability to co-labor is gone forever, if left to its own. Satan still wins then, in that scenario. SO, my thought would be that a “pro-active” trust rebuilding is more likely to yield the truly desired fruit of changed lives and trust and ability to co-labor effectively at the earliest possible moment.

Practically speaking, my preference (I think this would be the best, Spiritually, whenever possible) would be to speak with them, no matter how deep the wounds go—and agree that satan is the enemy, not one another, and that Oneness is essential as our mutual GOAL. While perhaps we can’t get there right now, we agree to pray for one another, and change anything that would keep us from Jesus’ Highest, the place we want to meet. And we trust that one day, the sooner the better, we’ll get there. In that scenario, we don’t have to have perfect understanding or legislated “trust” or ignore any genuine concerns we may have for another’s direction, but we can set the stage for FUTURE Unity and trust. I’ve found that just to let things go their own way, in hopes of restoring trust later with the passing of time (without this sort of groundwork), is generally not effective. If we agree together on a course of Truth and our GOAL is to be one as Jesus and the Father are one (not legislated OR “closing a blind eye”—but based on Truth) and that we will both desire that and work towards that—then the enemy loses the ability to separate by time and distance and imaginations. Just a thought, anyway…

Love in Him,