"Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding." If you are a student of the Bible you probably know this verse by heart. Of course it's Proverbs 3:5. It was actually the text God led me to preach my very first sermon ever on (or maybe it was the only one I was capable of trying to explain at the time lol). It's one that, as followers of Jesus, we stand on continually. Sometimes we don't know what's going on in our life, we don't know where to turn, and we don't know what's next. We only hold tight to this word from God Himself. Sometimes it's hard, sometimes it's easy. The same is true when we are dealing with people. Sometimes it's easy to trust them, sometimes its not. Although we are commanded to trust God in many places in the Bible, no where are we commanded to trust one another. We may expect it, but never receive it. Why is that? I want to suggest a few reasons why there is a lack of trust among people, maybe even you.
1) New. You're the new guy. Hardly anyone trusts the new guy. No matter what the position is. Sure there is a basic level of trust extended to most all humans, but Donald Trump isn't going to hand a money bag with $50,000 cash in it to someone he hired yesterday to take it to the bank. Likewise, most people don't go over to their new neighbor's house spilling all their martial problems. Sometimes the reason you aren't trusted is simply because you are new.
2) Unexperienced. I mowed this one yard down at the golf course for probably 8 years. It was the trickiest yard I have ever mowed on a weekly basis. It was steep all the way around the entire house. The worst part was in the back. There was a strip of grass in the back we maintained that was about 50-60ft wide in the skinniest part. It was between the house and about an 80ft drop off that you can barely walk on. At the bottom of the drop off was a pond and the pond was full of snapping turtles. The snapping turtles weren't really the bad part. It's the fact that if someone made one mistake on the mower, they would go down that drop off into the pond below. One mistake and it was bye bye employee and mower, hello workers' comp and general liability insurance claims. Needless to say, I was the only one to mow that part for quite some time. Eventually, when I had more experienced help, I allowed them to mow that part. However, I would never ever allow someone who had never been on a zero turn mow that part. It's not necessarily that you can't do whatever needs doing, its more that people want to feel comfortable and confident that you can do what needs to be done. Sometimes people don't trust you because you are unexperienced.
3) Failure. Some people have messed up and everyone knows about it. They've lied. They've cheated. They've stolen. People know it. Sure it may have been in the past. Sure people may have forgiven them. However, they still aren't willing to trust them. They aren't willing to leave their car unlocked with the person around. They've been proven "untrustworthy". Sometimes people don't trust you because of your failure.
4) Reputation. Some people are known for a string of failures and/or mistakes. And it wasn't just once. It has been time, after time, after time. You and I both know of people who have not just one DUI, but two, three, or maybe even four. And because of multiple offenses, they have now made a reputation for themselves. They are known as a drunk driver. The police know what they drive. They know what bar they hang out at. They probably even know who they were there with. Why? Because of their reputation. Sometimes people don't trust you because of your reputation.
5) Position. Raise your hand if you trust every politician in government office right now. Raise your hand if you trust any politician in government office right now. I didn't see any hands at all. My point exactly. The unfortunate part is it's not only politicians. (Many times this "position" distrust is directly tied to personal experience also.)
Maybe you have been to three different doctors in the past week and received three different diagnoses. Which one do you trust? You trust the one who you find out was right. The other two.....you tell all your friends and family about how wrong they were and about how that medicine he gave you resulted in really bad gas.
Several months back I ran into a family who wouldn't allow their kids to come to church on the church van but I knew the kids wanted to come. So what did I do? I did what every good youth pastor should do....I went to their house. After probably an hour of conversation about everything from the weather to Free Will Baptist doctrine (and never being invited inside on a really cold night), I got to the bottom of the issue. The youth pastor at the church where they had previously attended got caught with one of the teenage girls doing inappropriate things. He was fired. They haven't been to church since. Sometimes people don't trust you because of the position you are in.
6) Self. Some people don't trust others because they don't trust their own self. They know their own wicked thoughts. They know their own shortcomings and struggles. If I couldn't trust myself to tell the truth, how could I ever trust someone else to tell it? You can't. One key to being able to trust others is trusting ourself. It's repenting of sin in our lives. It's minimizing our failures. It's getting our reputation back to one of integrity. It's doing right no matter what others in our same position are doing. When we do these things, we can trust ourself and that allows us to trust others.
These are just a few thoughts that come to my mind about why people may or may not trust you. Some of these can be avoided, some can't. It all depends on the territory and nature of your situation. I hope you are trusted. I hope I am trusted. And no matter what, trust Jesus. He never fails.
What about you? What is a reason you don't trust a certain person or group of people? What is a reason you found yourself not being trusted by others?
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