I Want to Trust You, but I Don't: Moving Forward When You’re Skeptical of Others, Afraid of What God Will Allow, and Doubtful of Your Own Discernment

by Lysa TerKeurst

The other indicator that rebuilding trust wasn’t going to work with this person was their reaction when I would question something that felt off or triggering to me. Sometimes they were patient with my questions. But other times there was animosity that only made my legitimate and understandable suspicions worse. Statements like “Seriously, you’re not over this yet? How much longer am I going to have to answer questions about what I’m doing and where I’ve been? I’m not doing anything wrong. You’re acting crazy.” What I wanted was a statement like “Based on the history of what happened before, of course that made you nervous when I wasn’t where I said I would be. What do you need from me right now for reassurance? Let’s get you the facts you need to feel assured. And let’s make a game plan so this doesn’t happen again.” Without compassion, honesty, humility, and true repentance on the part of the offender, broken trust will most likely stay broken. Trust requires both parties to be willing to work through the process of rebuilding. There will be times we have hoped for a person to be what we want them to be. We’ve waited for them to become trustworthy. We’ve given it our all, but sometimes it’s too much allowance. We wrongly think forgiveness means going back to them and their behavior. We hope. We keep giving them chances. This time they will be someone I can trust. But their actions, over and over, tell us they are not trustworthy. At some point, instead of listening to t...