Trusting Others

When we say, we trust someone, we are asking them to be someone we can rely on to do what we ask of them. The fundamentals of trust require for the people involved to have a relationship. Unfortunately, because of the fall, most relationships are complex, setting the stage for disappointment.

Especially when past experiences revealed we never really knew the people we had relationships with. We start to believe we cannot really depend on people to do what we want them to do.This is especially true when we don’t really know what we want or need or how to ask the right questions ourselves to achieve such.

The only way to have relationships where you can truly relate, is to first get to know yourself. To trust someone else you must first know yourself, your values and purpose in life. Understanding who God created you to be will help you discover the flaws in your own life caused by the fall as you grow and change.

Knowing who God created you to be helps you discover your strengths, place and purpose. Discovering what you are capable of teaches you how to trust yourself.

Because we live in a world system that identifies people by their condition, skills, abilities, occupation, hobbies, physical characteristics, you may assume you have done this and already know yourself. You may apply labels to yourselves and say I am “fierce” or “shy” or “lazy”, but labels do not inspire knowing. They make categories!

Do you really know yourself? The assumptions that you have of yourself want really be challenged until a major event takes place in your life.

Unfortunately, to make decisions that are beneficial for what you want in life will require you to really know yourself at that moment not after the fact. Which is what usually happens in most people’s lives. We call it hindsight. Taking the long road home!

However, if the experience is painful and costly enough, it will inspire us to look more closely at our decision making process involved. When you learn why you do what you do, and why you react to things the way you do, then you can better understand how to take control of your life.

Your “Why” is constantly influencing your decision making because your why is your values; the things you believe are important in the way you live and work. They determine your priorities whether you realize it or not as you learn and grow.

When your plans and decisions match and honor God’s will for your life; life will be good – you will experience satisfaction and contentment. It is only here that you will truly trust yourself and others.

But when these don’t align with God’s will for your life; that’s when you lose your inner peace. It is here that suspicion, indecision, confusion, frustration and ineffectiveness set in.

If we don’t know what to expect of ourselves, it can be very hard to trust the people trying to help us.

#faith #communityengagement