“For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. In those days when you pray, I will listen.”
Jeremiah 29:11 NLT
When relational disaster strikes, then trust in relationship at every level is most often lost. I have over the years walked with individuals who are experiencing the trauma of divorce. Here a once intimate friendship unravels and ends, often abruptly and at the instigation of one person in the relationship. While the legal process has been made simpler, cleaner and quicker, there emotional and mental anguish former partners, and in many cases, children feel is acute. Divorce is a recipe for pain.
It is through our own relational history that we build a picture of the nature of the trust we can place in another person. The very word “love” is unquantifiable, a feeling rather more than a science. While we can identify objective acts that look like they are born of love, they may be from self-love rather than love for another. Love is a high-stakes gamble and divorce statistics reveal the odds of success are not high. The average duration of the 42 per cent of marriages ending in divorce in the UK is twelve years.
As disciples, we are in a covenant of love with God. Yet, when we come to faith, we bring our relational history with us. While we hear the stirring words God speaks to us through scripture, it is far more difficult to place our trust in them when our experience of life doesn’t match with our interpretation of those words. We find ourselves in a place where trust is in need of restoration.
This tension and angst that arising is disturbing and eats away at self-confidence. Our choice is a simple if painful one. Will we trust God, even though some previous relational commitments have failed?
QUESTION
Has your trust in people been damaged? Trust is the very foundation for friendship with God. What might help increase your ability to trust God completely?
PRAYER
In the restoration work in my heart and life, I ask you to replace and restore the trust joists that give the support and structure to my life.
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