Humility and Trust

To be frank, I don't know if I want to trust you. I've trusted people before, and some of them betrayed me, gossiped, and made fun of me. Some of them abandoned me, just hung me out to dry and walked away. So if I ask you to pray about something, or open up and tell you about my problems, what will you do? Or maybe this is you, asking me the same questions? Trust and humility has a lot to do with how you and I follow Christ, how healthy our relationships are and how healthy our local church or group is -- so let's look at it carefully.

"Humility is trusting God and others with me." That comes from The Kingdom Life, edited by Alan Andrews (great book, by the way). There is humility involved in trust, and trust involved in humility. How does that work?

When I trust God with "me" -- with sins or old thinking I see inside me -- he may require me to surrender something I don't want to let go of or stop doing. I may not be able to continue with my life, my habits and my thinking the way they are now. That's frightening, because although I may not like my life right now, at least it's comfortable!! But, as we know, Jesus says "come follow me" and by following I must pick up my cross, a symbol of death -- my own death!  He says I must deny myself--just like Peter said of Jesus, "I don't know him." But if I truly want the results I'm asking God for, it will take that level of sacrifice. Can I really trust God to take care of me?  Is there any other way?

And when I trust others with "me," it may lead to a new, deeper and more rewarding level of love and mutual acceptance between us. On the other hand, like in my past, they may hurt me deeply. Well, Jesus went there too, before me. His friends all abandoned him at his greatest time of need. One of them sold him out to the enemy and the rest ran away. One of them followed, but then lied about knowing him out of fear. And his own countrymen rejected him, spit on him and demanded that the Romans kill him. Yep, it's safer to keep myself closed off and not tell anyone.

But I can't heal myself. The only path to healing is to open myself to the power of God, and not be alone even in doing that.  Others who know Jesus bring the love and the power of Jesus -- the presence of Jesus, in spirit -- to me in our friendship. God works in them to explain and reinforce to me who I really am in Christ, and make it possible for me to grow into that reality, with confidence.

Can I trust God with myself? He's saved me, so I guess I can. Can I trust you? That's a decision I have to make despite the risk. Can you trust me? Same answer. But it is the only way forward.