This post is a part of a series. Part 1 may be viewed here.
My previous post I made the point of the need to share ones struggle and pain. In this post, I will share how trust is built/rebuilt in order to make sharing deeper things of the heart possible.
The odometer read 109,000 miles (give or take a few dozen). By no means was it a new, or even a flashy one at that, but it was mine. I was 18 years old and needed a car to commute back and forth to school my freshman year of college. That ’97 Chevy Luminia would be the car that I had all the way through college. It served as my wife and I’s main vehicle early on in our marriage. The maroon beast even made the 700 mile trek to Indiana when we moved from PA for me to take my current role at the church I serve at. In the end, that car ended up with 263,459 miles (that is an exact number). As I watched the tow truck take it away, I relived in my mind the very first time that I drove it.
Truth be told, the car was not very trustworthy toward the end of its days. It’s transmission leaked and would slip if you didn’t have a gentle foot when it would shift out of first gear. It burned oil, it kind of had power windows, the starter was off and on (that is why I would carry a hammer with me to beat on the passenger side floor to get it to turn), The engine would overheat on hot days, and the final straw was a blown muffler.
If you asked me if I was sad when it was towed away (for use in a demo derby I was told), I would be lying if I said I wasn’t. That was the car that my wife and I drove away from our wedding reception in. It was the car that took our first child home from the hospital. It was my first car. Having all of the issues it had, you may wonder why I still holding on to it? I guess it was the desire to get it to the 300k mark. I was willing to put up with sitting on the side of the road to wait for the engine to cool down before daring to start it. I would talk to it when it would not want to shift. I would pet the dashboard when it didn’t want to start. As I write this, I wonder where it is now. Part of me hopes that it has been scrapped, recycled, and the metal (which was not rusted) is now part of the body of a sleek roadster (wishful thinking).
If we were to replace my car’s untrustworthiness (my spell check is telling me that is not a word..I will keep it anyways) with a person who is not trustworthy, it would be fair to say that one’s friendship with that individual would not last. A relationship with a person is much different. A lack of trust in a friendship is like sugar in a gas tank (not good). It does not take too may breakdowns in a friendship to make one very weary of stepping back in the passenger seat with an untrustworthy person.
The Titanic was not built in a day
Lets move on to a different mode of transportation. Trust takes time to build. Did you know that it took two years and two months from start of construction to finish to build the Titanic? More than 15,000 men were employed to undertake the task of building the steel giant. * Like the Titanic’s construction, our relationships take time. Also like the construction, our relationships take time spent building trust. Frequency of interaction with someone is key in building trust. The Titanic was not able to build itself. Trust cannot be put on like a wig and give the perception of growth, there must be a period in which there is frequent interaction.
Don’t lie to each other, for you have stripped off your old sinful nature and all its wicked deed. Put on your new nature, and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like him. -Colossians 3:9,10 (NLT)
Our basis for trustworthiness is becoming like God, our creator. The example of God’s character is like the blueprints that the builders labored to actualize as they built the Titanic. Our old sinful nature has been stripped off and replaced with the new. Lies are a trust breaker. A great way to build trust is to build it off of truth. God’s truth and His word.
Whoever goes about slandering reveals secrets, but he who is trustworthy in spirit keeps a thing covered. -Proverbs 11:13 (NLT)
A second way to build trust in the climate of spending frequent time together is to be able to “keep covered” the words that are entrusted to you. It must be stated that there are two BIG things that never need to be kept covered. If someone tells you if they have been physically abused or if they are thinking about harming themselves (I will touch on this more in depth on the next post).
As you spend time together with a friend, common experiences will bring up topics of discussion and you or they may feel it necessary to share with each other bits and pieces from the innermost recesses of the heart. Things that have never been worded to a person. Guard these like precious jewels. They have been entrusted to you. Don’t go and spread them out for all to see, but hide them and invest in continued trust.
Friendship + Frequent Experiences Shared = Climate for Building Trust
Trust takes lots of time to build. Don’t expect to go from zero to 100 all at once. An over-simplified equation for building trust is, Friendship + Frequent Experiences Shared = Climate for Building Trust. I cannot stress the frequency aspect enough. I fear that we equate going to church and sitting in a pew is somehow going to build in us a sense of close community. Shared experiences and frequent experiences is a must.
The Titanic sunk in one night
At 11:40pm on April 14th, the Titanic struck and iceberg. * The construction phase of the colossal task had taken a bit over two years to complete. According to experts combined with eye-wittiness accounts, it took less than three hours to sink. all of that hard work, time, and $7.5 million ($400 million in today’s economy) sunk to the bottom of the frigid North Atlantic Ocean. *
Trust takes time, time, and more time to build, but with one misgiving it can all be lost. Friendships that have lasted decades are able to be sunk with the careless words in a moment of misgiving.
The same muscular organ that can wax on so eloquently can also dump hot wax on ones head.
…a small rudder makes a huge ship turn wherever the pilot chooses to go, even though the winds are strong. In the same way, the tongue is a small thing that makes grand speeches. But a tiny spark can set a great forest on fire. And the tongue is a flame of fire. It is a whole world of wickedness, corrupting your entire body. It can set your whole life on fire, for it is set on fire by hell itself. -James 3:4-6 (NLT)
The same muscular organ that can wax on so eloquently can also dump hot wax upon ones head. Being the recipient of a breach of trust is damaging. Being the instigator of such damage may have a larger price.
There are six things the LORD hates – no, seven things he detests: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hand that kill the innocent, a heart that plots evil, feet that race to do wrong, a false witness who pours out lies, a person who sows discord in a family. -Proverbs 6:16-19 (NLT)
Let us call this passage the Hall of Shame (it is not good to have characteristics found on this list). This list if full of trust-sinkers. Note how the tongue is just part of a larger list of destruction. Weigh your words and actions with much care, they have the power to set your life on fire.
How to rebuild trust
How do you reestablish trust in a sunken relationship? There have been many ideas on how to return the Titanic to the surface (at least portions of it). Some of the more questionable being, filling it with ping pong balls, pumping it full of boiling wax, sucking it to the surface with magnets, and my personal favorite…blowing it up with dynamite (yeah, that would work). *
Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. -Colossians 3:12-14 (ESV)
If forgiveness is the nest in which the egg containing renewed trust lay, Love is the incubating agent which allows the renewed trust to hatch.
In our house, forgiveness is not an option (four kids: 8, 5, and 3 year old twins). It may be a wood block to the head, a fist to the stomach, playfulness gone bad, an angry reaction to a ‘stolen’ toy… Forgiveness is a part of the apology. Trust is different, but trust cannot happen without forgiveness. Colossians does not let us step around forgiving one another, “so you also must forgive”. Trust is a bit different. Trust is earned back with time and much love extended by the party that was hurt.
If forgiveness is the nest in which the egg containing renewed trust lay, Love is the incubating agent which allows the renewed trust to hatch.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. -1 Corinthians 13:7 (ESV)
Renewed trust is never a one person job. It involves both the violator and the violated. We have all experienced times in our lives where our trust was broken by someone. We may have been the person at fault for it. If you have not experienced either, you will eventually. It takes two to build trust. It takes two to rebuild trust. One earning it, and one extending it.
I will leave you with a quote from one of my favorite authors. Clive Staples Lewis wrote in his work, The Four Loves:
“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable.”
Take the risk of love. Be vulnerable. Build trust. Rebuild Trust. Re-extend it. Guard that which is entrusted to you like jewels. Love God. Love others.
-D
Write Down the Middle 