I’m no psychologist, and most of these Thoughts are based on my own experiences, or my own observations, or some realization that has suddenly made itself apparent – welcome or not – and perhaps a little later than it has to most other people.

Sometimes I’m just Thinking out loud, asking myself (and by extension, asking you) questions in an attempt to gauge my own wisdom – or more accurately, lack thereof.

So on the way to work this morning I started thinking about the notion of Trust.  Admittedly that’s quite a large concept to tackle, but then I got to thinking specifically about something a little easer to handle – what it means when somebody says “Trust me“.

First and foremost: nobody is perfect.  Everybody makes mistakes.  Children may not realize this; they’re too busy Getting On With It(tm), like getting up to run again after they’ve tripped over their own foot (=mistake).  Or crying to seek attention after being admonished for hitting another child (=mistake).  Or squeezing by after Daddy backed into them in the kitchen because Daddy didn’t see them (=Daddy’s mistake).

No, I think that children don’t truly understand what a mistake is until they learn what consequences are, and that there’s something called “Cause and Effect” which links mistakes to consequences.  It’s only after that, I think, that they can start to evaluate their own actions (mistakes), and other people’s actions (their mistakes) and think about what may come next if those actions occur (the consequences).

But I digress.

Adults, at the very least, should know they can make mistakes and that others can make mistakes.  Hopefully they can also admit when they’ve made a mistake.  And – hopefully again – they can understand when somebody else admits to having made a mistake.

So back to Trust (Me).  A classic and well-known trust game has you turn around so that your back faces somebody, then you lean back and hope that the person will catch you.  And assuming that you decide to put your fate in this person’s hands, one of two things can happen next:

1. The person catches you.
2. The person does not catch you.

The question is – if the person does not catch you, is your Trust in that person shattered?

The question I asked myself on the way to work this morning was this: was I trusting that I would be caught, or that the person would try their best to catch me?

At that point it dawned on me – and you may disagree – that often times we place our trust in the “thing” rather than placing our trust in the person.  Christians may be used to trusting in God that things will work out, even if the things don’t work out the way we expect them to.  But how often do we extend that same consideration to the people in our lives who have made the same promises to Love, Honour and Protect us?

People who we believe to be responsible.  People who have demonstrated that they have our best interests at heart.  People who seem to be diligent in their efforts.

Children trust their parents implicitly, and forgive them in no time at all.  It’s only as we get older that we start to understand what a mistake is and what the consequences are, and then we focus less on the person and more on the particular outcome – or possible outcome.  Our trust wavers, when in fact our relationship hasn’t changed – only our focus has, on the thing rather than the person.  For some reason we expect perfection, knowing full well that there’s no such thing.

And while I can admit that some things border on unforgiveable – infidelity, crime, lies – I also submit that Trust issues impact us in matters that are far less obvious and consequential yet far more frequent.  Things that seem trivial – like the infamous “backseat driver” – but are serious nonetheless because they speak to the issue of Trust.

It would seem, then, that the question of trusting somebody should be a last resort.  And as is the case with most issues of Life as we age, what was once an implicit thing now requires a decision and concerted effort on our part.  We must make the decision to relegate that question to the back of the line; behind things like practicality (“were my expectations fair?”), relevance (“does it need to be corrected?”), remorse (“is s/he making an effort to correct it?”), and mutual ownership (“how can we correct this?”).

It’s easy to feel betrayed when you lean back and your bum touches the ground.  But then you realize that it’s a Good Thing(tm) to have somebody there who’ll do their best to keep you standing.