Legalism’s a bitch.

The baptism went extremely well - I had so much support, so much love flowing into me, that when it came time to share my testimony in front of the church, I just felt love flow out. Thanks to everyone who came out and thanks to those who couldn’t, but sent their words of congrats.

I definitely hit a spiritual high, but knew that to every high, there is a low. It’s in the valley where things grow, so although it’s been a trying time, I know I am just being refined.

I grew up in the Catholic church and got the notion in my head that for every bad thing I did, it was a notch — The more notches, the more certain I knew I’d go to Hell for what I’ve done. However, I could go to confession, spill my guts, and the priest would give me penance. Penance was usually the same - Ten Holy Marys and one One Father. After my prayers, my notches were supposed to be wiped clean. But, even in my young age, I had a feeling there was more to life than this.

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Teach a man to fish, and there’s no “I” in team.

So how do you teach someone to trust?

I’ve rambled to a few people about what I think about this and now I’m rambling here. Trust is kinda sorta like a house of playing cards. It takes awhile to set the foundation and that’s if you even want to bother trying to make the house in the first place. Then, it’s a lot of sweat and shaky hands. It takes a lot of work. But man, does that house look cool or not once you start running out of cards and start sitting back and smiling? Oh, but wait a minute. One wrong move and WHOOSH! No more house. Unless you built a good foundation, then maybe, just maybe, you don’t have to start all over. (Does that analogy work?)

Alright. We’ve settled the fact that trust takes a whole load of work to build up and one wrong move and we’re back to square one. Or even negative square one. But either way, how do we retrain ourselves to trust? Or if we were at fault, how do we earn back trust? To answer the latter, I think we need to answer the former.

We have to learn to trust someone before we can expect them to trust us. You have to pull the trigger first or chance waiting at the starting line with no one knowing when to launch forward. This first step, for most, is the hardest part. We were born dependent, but quickly we learn that the world is a tricky place full of tricky people and sometimes those tricky people are your friends. Sometimes the people that let you down the most are people who are near and dear to your heart and man, that hurts. So when we get back up and we’re given the choice to rebuild what was broken, we are naturally going to be hesitant. Questions, questions. Do I want to trust? How much will I trust? Why can’t I trust?

Hmm. I John 4:19 says, “We love Him because He first loved us.” We can safely change that to “We trust Him because He first trusted us.” Who doesn’t know the story of Adam and Eve? Who doesn’t know that God created them and then gave them all sorts of stuff to be in charge of. He gave them land. He gave them animals. And although we mucked that up, God still trusts us with the ultimate responsibility of loving Him and showing His love to others. He still trusts us. He still loves us.

What am I trying to say. I Cor 13 says love “always trusts.” We are not to lean on our own understanding, but to trust the Lord with all our heart. So, while we are not necessarily supposed to completely trust others, we are at least to exemplify the trustworthiness of the Lord to others by being trustworthy first. And then, perhaps, that person may learn to trust.

Oh my gosh, it is late and I will wake up and not understand a word of this.