The Death of Trust
Proverbs 3:5-6 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.“
I dropped her.
In my last year of seminary at Northern Baptist Theological Seminary, we were practicing baptisms (You have to learn somewhere!). Before we were allowed to get in the water tank, we did dry-land baptisms, reciting the words of the special occasion we would say when we began our service as pastors. I was teamed with Bonnie Bell, and as I was beginning to lean her back she hesitated, afraid to bend her knees and fall backwards. I looked at her and said, “Bonnie, trust me!” She nodded her head and I began the process again…and promptly dropped her on the floor like a lead balloon.
She looked up at me and, with a chuckle, said, “Trust me! Trust me!” I would see Bonnie years later and she would always say, “Trust me! trust me!”
It’s a moment that I can still replay in my mind almost 45 years later. Although that time was a lighter experience of failed trust, it’s also symbolic of the failure of trust that most of us have experienced, and the death of trust in our day and age.
It doesn’t take much for a person to see that we live in a society that could be characterized more as “a people that mistrusts” instead of a land populated with trusted folk. Mistrust doesn’t involve risk. It doesn’t require belief in a person, idea, or institution. It won’t disappoint us, but it also won’t move us forward. It entrenches us in a mindset that is certain of the prevalence of dishonesty and suspicious of any claim of honesty.
Trust doesn’t make the headlines. It doesn’t fuel the flames of controversy. When we all get along it looks too much like the long lost days of “Leave It To Beaver”. The thing is Ward, June, and Wally have all passed away, and The Beaver is now 75. Things have changed and become cynical and complicated. “The Beaver” didn’t have to worry about spyware, losing his shirt to crypto-currency, or whacked-out elected officials.
Dare I say that people nowadays are more trusting of the athlete or actor who advertises the wonderland of placing an online gambling bet, than they are of a pastor or priest who urges them to trust in the One Who created them.
Perhaps that’s one reason for the downward slide in church attendance. Sexual scandals involving religious leaders have definitely not helped, that’s for sure. The mirroring of society instead of reflecting Christ has caused religious institutions to look compromised and ungrounded. More than that, however, it seems trusting in a Holy God and believing in Him is too much of a reach for people who reside in the valley of disappointment.
Just as Bonnie Bell was reluctant to chance another dip supported by me, people who have been let down are hesitant to give trust another chance in their lives. It’s easier to lean on their own understanding.
The ultimate downside to that is when I lean on my own understanding and am disappointed by my own personal failure, I have no one to point the finger at. In fact, four of my five fingers are pointing back at me.
When our trust has died, our souls enter into the land of paralysis.
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