Simply stating what trust is, it means placing confidence in something that will work well.

Trust holds value because it’s a key element in successful relationships. It involves taking an intimate part of yourself to entrust that part of you to someone else. Trusting someone means “letting them in.” The collective understanding of trust equates to unlocking our inner emotions and thoughts to become vulnerable enough to allow another person to handle those intimate parts. Parts of us that should not particularly be handled by people.

I believe before confidence is deposited into someone we should complete a checklist that justifies the choice to trust. Before investing love, energy, time, and confidence, take the time to evaluate how they invest these same things into themselves or the people around them.

Do they truly love themselves? If they don’t then they won’t love you? Do they have respect for themselves, do they try to take care of themselves and their own things? If you dated somebody whose car was always full of trash, that allows no rights to join them in matrimony then argue about how they won’t aid in keeping the house clean.

What is the process of deeming a person worthy of trust? When you purchase a vehicle you should get the service records, check the blue book value and have it inspected before you drive off expecting it to be dependable. In other words you must WATCH and OBSERVE before you offer trust.

Trusting and placing your confidence in someone means you become reliant on them, resting your mind on their integrity, veracity, justice, friendship or any other sound characteristic we have witnessed in people. Trusting means leaning on others with hopes that they will not fall. But what is problematic with trust goes back to the opening statement which expresses placing confidence in something that will work well. But in my opinion, humans are more flawed than anything else on this earth so there is never a guarantee in how well a person will “work.”

That’s why Psalms 118:8 says, “it is better to put your trust in the Lord than put your confidence in man.” Psalms 146:3 “Do not put your trust in princes nor the son of man in whom there is no help” Jeremiah 17:5 “cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength” Micah 7:5 “A man’s enemies are the men of his own house”.

Wow! Do we still need to ask how or why we all find ourselves in a place where our trust has been broken? It is dangerous to place an expectation of commitment without an expectation of failure. Let me be clear, man is not like God and man will fail you! Give him enough time. But remember that the way you perceive them failing you is based on the measure of which you trust. You can’t fail me if I don’t trust you. If you make a stupid decision and I don’t trust you then I will not be disappointed. That’s the reason there are people right now that won’t trust anybody. But that’s why we must re-evaluate the purpose of trust.

In relationships trust is necessary because it produces something grand. Confidence! I hate it when my wife says to me “you’re supposed to be an Elder!” The last time was exactly a year ago when we tried to save money on a trip and I agreed to one of those ninety minute presentations. Well that turned into three hours and a brother lost his cool. Her translatable version of what I am “supposed to be” is “I am trusting that you can be better than this.” That means she puts her confidence in me and because of that I am now held accountable. This is true for employees, managers, Pastors, church members, marriage and friendships.  

For someone to put their confidence in us nudges the pride in us producing encouragement, pushing us and drives us to be better. But on the end of the trustee, emotions should not be attached to the trust. Trust becomes simply a tool used to inject accountability in relationships. The mistake we make too often is trusting others with parts of us that only God should have access to because only He will be perfect to respond to our trust without disappointment and failure.

I guess the take away would be that trust is risky, but John Donne wrote, “No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a part of a continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were.”  Trust is powerful and because we cannot make it alone we have to learn how to trust seeing that it truly has the ability to make us better.

God Bless you,

Elder Aquila T. Carmon