Sunday, March 7, 2010

What About Trust?

Pastor Rick Warren made the following comment in a post on his Facebook page: “Never confuse forgiveness and trust. Forgiveness must be immediate and unconditional. Trust must be re-earned over time.”

I found this especially interesting since I’ve recently been part of an ongoing group discussion on the topic of forgiveness. Someone posed the question, “How do we trust those who continue to sin against us after we’ve forgiven them multiple times for the same type of offense?”

That’s a very good question, and I would never presume to have a pat and easy answer to that question, but as the discussion progressed, this thought occurred to me: The expectation that we can or should be able to trust our fellow human beings should be tempered with the realization that even those most worthy of our trust – those who truly love us and would never want to hurt us – in all likelihood will eventually do something that leaves us feeling hurt or betrayed or just very disappointed, and our trust in them will be compromised. Therefore, while trust is an essential part of any good relationship, maybe we shouldn’t expect to be able to trust others 100 percent.

Now, if we deal with someone who habitually offends, asks forgiveness, and then repeats the offense, our responsibility is to forgive that person every time. The next move? Pray for that person, and trust GOD to deal with whatever underlying issue in his or her life is causing this behavior. And then the next time that person comes along and commits the same old sin against you, trust that your prayers are at work in this person’s life. Trust that God is dealing with the issue and change is on its way.

As I said, I don’t want to sound trite when it comes to an issue that can be complicated and painful, but sometimes we think it’s up to us to “fix” someone else when we need to step back and let God take care of the matter.

So we forgive them, we pray for them, and we get out of the way and let God do what He will.

Psalm 118:8; It is better to trust in the Lord / Than to put confidence in man.

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