10 Someone to Be Trusted
It is one of the most beautiful things you can see. It is even more beautiful to experience it. It is a sweet thing to watch a couple who are totally at rest with one another. It is wonderful to watch the respect and affection flow between them. It is a beautiful thing to watch them negotiate their way through difficulty as if they were one person. It is sweet to see how relaxed they are with one another, how comfortable they are in one another’s care. It is a beautiful thing to see what happens in a marriage when trust grows and thrives. I wish my marriage had begun that way, but it didn’t.
I think I made the mistake that many people entering into the lifelong relationship of marriage make—I took trust for granted. We loved one another and our relationship was pretty comfortable and easy, so I simply did not think about trust. Little did I know that not only was I not building a sturdy bond of trust, but I was eroding what little trust there was between us. I look back, and it is hard to believe that all of this was going on and I did not have clue one. No, I wasn’t a mean or violent man; I was a selfish and immature one. I wanted my own way and I didn’t deal well with difference. I didn’t so much want unity; I wanted uniformity, and when I didn’t get it, I did all the wrong things.
Luella was very patient, but she would not acquiesce. She knew that my attitude and responses were wrong. She was not going to declare war and respond in kind, but she also was unwilling to live in a relationship with someone whom she could not trust. Change needed to take place. What was going on could not continue. Trust needed to be built like it had never been built before. I am deeply grateful for Luella’s resolve. She would not call wrong right. She would not melt into the shadows. She was not willing to give in or give up. She kept calling me to what was right, even though she knew I would get angry when she did. As you know, we are still together. There is remarkable trust between us. Luella is not only my hero, but she is also my best friend. We have remarkable peace and unity between us. We love to be with one another, and we are both grateful for the years we have had together. All this would have been impossible without the building of a beautiful bond of trust between us. For that, I am thankful to Luella, to others who God used to show me the light, and to the transforming grace of a relentless Redeemer.
Trust—it’s readily given, easily broken, and costly to restore. You are usually willing to grant someone trust at the beginning of a relationship. Most of us don’t enter a relationship cynically. You are willing to take someone’s words at face value and willing to give him the benefit of the doubt when he does something you do not understand. You are willing to listen to explanations and graciously receive confessions, but you are looking for her to prove herself worthy of the trust you have willingly granted her. At some point, you will realize that you are in a relationship with someone either predictable and reliable or not faithful or true to his or her word. Here is the point: trust is inescapable in any relationship, particularly in marriage, and although it is temporarily granted, trust is something that must always be built for any relationship to be healthy. This is true of marriage even more. If your marriage is going to be what God intended it to be, trust must be built, maintained, and protected, and restored when broken. This is what this chapter is about.
TRUST: MARRIAGE’S CONSTRUCTION
PROJECT
I made the big mistake that many of you have made. I took trust for granted. We liked one another; we seemed to get along well, so it didn’t seem that trust would be a problem. Trust wasn’t a practical, daily goal that I carried around in my brain. I didn’t evaluate my actions, reactions, words, and responses from the vantage point of how they would build or weaken Luella’s trust in me. Consequently, I did things that damaged trust, and I didn’t even know it.
Now, it is true that you will have some level of trust between you as you enter marriage. If you didn’t, you probably wouldn’t have gotten married. But there is a real way in which the early years of a marriage are a trust internship. You are watching one another, learning the degree to which you can rely on one another and entrust yourselves to each other. You are also learning the things that you need to do to demonstrate to the other person that you are someone who can be trusted. These things are going on in every young marriage. The problem is that most couples aren’t aware of them, and because they aren’t aware, they are not as focused and intentional as they should be.
Because of the love you have for one another and your desire for your marriage to work, you will grant one another probationary trust, but you will not continue to entrust yourself to someone who has demonstrated in a variety of ways that he or she cannot be trusted. This brings up something else that needs to be considered. You are a sinner, married to a sinner. You will not always do and say things that engender trust. You will have moments of selfishness or needless irritation. You will get angry and say things that you shouldn’t. You will have times when you want to be right more than you want to have peace. You will have moments when you are more demanding than you are giving. You will resurrect an offense that you said you had forgiven. You will be critical when you should be encouraging. Look at this list. None of these things encourages trust. No, they do the opposite. They challenge and break down whatever bond of trust you have been taking for granted.
You see, the comprehensive cohabitation of marriage will expose you. It will reveal your true heart and your true character. The pressures, opportunities, and responsibilities of marriage will shine a light not only on your strengths but also on your weaknesses, failures, and sins. What you really want, what you truly value, and what you think and do when you do not get these things will be exposed. This means that your husband or wife will see you for who you really are in marriage. This is why it is so important to be intentional, so important not to take trust for granted. You want to build such a strong foundation of trust together that when you sin against one another, you have established enough trust to deal with the sin in a way that doesn’t further erode trust and do lasting damage to your union.
It’s hard for me to think about how different the first period of my own marriage would have been if I had known that the early years of a marriage are building years. Now, if you didn’t know that either, and although you lived together you didn’t build together, don’t panic. The bright message of Scripture is that change really is possible. God sent his Son to live, die, and rise again to give us new life and with that new life the promise of reconciliation and restoration. Your marriage is not encased in concrete. You are not stuck. God not only calls you to change, but he has already given you everything you need to make the changes to which he has called you. Remember, you are not alone in your struggle. He has invaded your marriage with his powerful love and transforming grace. Confess the things that have broken the trust between you and get to work building trust once again.
I’ve seen it again and again—husbands and wives trying to live together without trust. It is an exercise in futility. You simply cannot have a relationship with someone whom you do not trust. Such a marriage is a cycle of doubt, accusation, conflict, recrimination, hurt, disappointment, and withdrawal. I’ve listened to people who have so little trust between them that they literally debate everything the other says. But I’ve been able to be there when they have finally become desperate, when they finally refuse to live that way anymore. I have been able to be there when they quit pointing the finger at one another and begin owning personal responsibility. I have been able to be there when they begin to confess their wrongs to God and one another. I have been able to be there when they begin to get serious about trust and begin to be intentional about building it. And I have been there with them to celebrate fresh starts and new beginnings.
Here’s what you need to understand: the building of trust between you begins vertically before it ever begins horizontally. This means that because of your confidence in God’s presence, love, power to change you, forgiveness, wisdom of what he calls you to do, his empowering grace and unwillingness to forsake what he has begun before it is done, you are able to step out and build a trust relationship with your spouse. You see, as you are doing that, you are not placing your eggs in your spouse’s basket and hoping that she will not drop them. No, you know that she is less than perfect, and you know that he will fail. Rather, you have placed all your eggs in God’s basket, and you know that even if your spouse fails you, God will not. You know that he will give you what you need to deal with the danger and disappointment that comes with building a life of trust with someone who is still flawed. Because of your confidence in God, you can move toward your spouse and not be afraid to do this because, although you love your spouse, you don’t get your identity, purpose in life, and inner sense of well-being from him or her. You get that from the Lord, and because you trust him, you can build trust with your spouse.
Play It Straight
Straightforward, clear, and transparent communication that is without manipulation, deceit, or subtext is essential to building a relationship of trust. No matter what the location or situation, your spouse needs to be able to take your words at face value. She must not be in a position where she is left wondering if you really meant what you said or said what you meant. He must not be in a situation where he is required to read between the lines or to figure the hidden meaning behind the words that you spoke. That is what is being addressed when the Bible calls us to let our yes be yes and our no be no.
This is where I think that the words of Paul about communication with one another are so helpful. He says, “Let no corrupting [unwholesome] talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear” (Eph. 4:29). What is Paul’s definition of wholesome communication? He doesn’t reduce, as we have done, wholesome communication to the avoidance of certain words. For Paul, wholesome communication starts with the intention of the heart. Wholesome communication is other-centered, other-regarding communication. You say something to your spouse not because you want something from him but because you want something for him. You want your words to consider him, to consider the moment, and to consider how you may grace him (build him up) with what you are about to say. There’s no subtext, hidden meaning, or manipulative intent that you need to fear. You love him and want the best for him, and your hope is that your words will benefit your spouse in some way. This kind of communication will always build trust. Is your communication free of hidden agenda, and is it motivated by the needs of your spouse?
Be Good for Your Word
Keep the promises you make. It is just that simple. You want the person you live with to know that what you commit to do, you will do, in the time that you have promised to do it. Now, as I stated earlier, most of your promises will be small, but you can’t let yourself minimize the importance of the little promise. Remember the theme that runs throughout this book: you do not build a marriage of unity, understanding, and love in a few big moments of life, but in ten thousand little moments. Little promises are important precisely because they are little, and the cumulative effect of your little moments of faithfulness will convince your husband or wife that you can be trusted with the greater matters of life. Your spouse will know that she has been blessed to live with someone upon whom she can rely and who will not let circumstances, contingencies, or excuses get in the way of his doing what he has promised to do. Are you serious about your promises, even when they are little, and do you do everything in your power to follow through?
Face Up to Your Wrongs
Self-righteousness and self-defensiveness do not encourage trust. Humble approachability does. Again, it really is that simple. The person you live with has empirical evidence that you are not perfect, so she needs to know that in situations where you have failed, she can come to you with the knowledge that you will listen and humbly consider what she has said to you. She has to know that you have an accurate view of yourself, that you know that you are still in need of growth and change, and that you are willing to examine your thoughts, desires, choices, words, and actions. Without this, when your spouse has been wronged, she has no place of appeal and therefore no realistic hope of change.
You see, in marriage you are not trusting that your spouse will be perfect, but you are trusting him to be willing to deal with his failures with honesty, humility, and the commitment to change. The building of trust always requires admission of wrongs and a commitment to change. This requirement is essential, because marriage, being this side of heaven, is always between two flawed people living in a fallen world.
In fact, in our hearts we long for something even more encouraging. We long for a marriage where confrontation isn’t regularly needed, because when we do or say something wrong, we are unsettled in our hearts (the convicting ministry of the Holy Spirit), and without being confronted with the wrong we did or said, whichever one of us was wrong comes to the other and owns the wrong and seeks forgiveness and a restoration of the relationship. Who wouldn’t want to live in this kind of relationship, and who wouldn’t be drawn to trust such a person? Do you quickly admit your wrongs and seek forgiveness?
Watch Out for the Other Person
Genuine, heartfelt, self-started, and regular nurture of the other person is another important seedbed of trust. You tend to feel safe moving toward someone who has demonstrated in a variety of ways that he really does think about you, watch out for your welfare, and look for ways to care for you. I have had many husbands and wives say to me, “I’m just not on my husband’s radar,” or, “He doesn’t seem to know that I am around,” or, “She’s in her own little world.” You don’t tend to entrust yourself to someone who gives you the impression that she is so busy caring for herself that she has little time to care for you.
Now, this is war. No, I don’t mean a battle between you and your spouse about how well you care for one another. No, I am talking about a battle that rages in your own heart. It is the battle of kingdoms that we have already talked about. It is a battle over which kingdom will rule your heart and control the way you respond to your spouse. Will you be ruled by the kingdom of self and allow your responses to your spouse to be controlled by no larger concern than your wants, your needs, and your feelings? Or will you joyfully give yourself to the kingdom of God and live for something bigger than yourself? Remember, the kingdom of God is a kingdom of love. The centerpiece event of this kingdom is a radical sacrifice of love—God giving up his own Son to death so that we might have life. Remember, too, that the central call of the kingdom of God is a call to love; love God above all else and love your neighbor as yourself. It is a call to step away from me-centric living and give yourself to other-focused living.
But this is war. Sometimes you get it right. Sometimes you actually find joy in giving up what you want for the sake of the other:
“I’ll go to her movie.”
“I’ll buy the house that she likes.”
“I’ll opt for peace rather than doing anything I can to prove that I am right.”
There are other times when we get it wrong:
“I don’t care how much she moans; I am going golfing.”
“I know we can’t afford it, but I need a vacation.”
“I know she is uncomfortable with some of the things I ask her to do, but she is my wife.”
If you are going to live a consistent lifestyle of caring for one another, you have to be aware of this war and seek God’s grace to fight it. How well do you care for one another?
Keep Short Accounts
For us, it was a stunning little piece of practical wisdom that kept the struggles of the early years from completely destroying our marriage. We took it seriously, and we acted on it with resolve. It was hard because it called us to do things that were uncomfortable and didn’t fit well with the emotions, desires, and schedule of the moment. But it made sense to us, and we determined that we were going to live in light of its call. Do I have you intrigued? It came to us as an unremarkable phrase in a very theological portion of Scripture, but when we read it over again, it jumped off the page. There it was in the fourth chapter of Ephesians: “Do not let the sun go down on your anger” (v. 26). It is a call to keep short accounts so that you do not give the Devil an opportunity (v. 27).
Consider how practically wise this directive is. Bad things tend to happen when you give offenses time to marinate in your heart. You’ve experienced this. As you carry the offense around with you, it tends to grow in size and magnitude. As it grows, your hurt and anger grow as well. As this is happening, you begin to rehearse the things you would like to say to the other person in defense of yourself and to help them understand what a heinous crime they have committed against you. Without knowing it, you are troubling your own trouble and heading to a marital explosion rather than a sweet reconciliation. Because you have given the offense time to expand, you will talk about it in ways that are inflammatory and over the top. This will cause the other to be defensive rather than open, because you are making the situation much bigger than it was. As your spouse responds defensively to you, you are hurt at his unwillingness to face what he has done. Now, you have added a hurtful impasse to the original offense. Both of you now feel justified in your anger, and each is waiting for the other to give in first.
Not allowing the sun to go down on your anger allows a little offense to remain little, it allows big offenses not to collect more and more hurt, and it protects you from the nasty whispers of the enemy, who is a deceiver, a divider, and a destroyer. For us, this meant that we would not go to sleep angry at one another. Sometimes that meant lying in bed, propping our eyes open, and hoping that the other person would ask for forgiveness first! But over the years we learned the protection and benefit that comes from keeping short accounts. So now it is but a few minutes after something wrong has been said or done before we approach one another seeking forgiveness and reconciling once again. We know that we will need to do this until sin no longer remains in us.
When the love relationship you have with the other is so important to you that you are pained when there are problems between you, and you work quickly to make things right, you are building a bond of trust in the relationship. The commitment to keep short accounts tells you that your spouse takes you seriously, tells you that your relationship is important to your spouse, and tells you that your spouse is willing to examine herself out of love for you. This gives you confidence that you can move toward your spouse and not be afraid of what will happen as you entrust yourself to his care. Do you quickly deal with wrongs and quickly settle your differences?
Remember That Trust Is War
Why does the Bible warn us not to give way to “enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, [and] envy” (Gal. 5:19– 21)? Here is the humbling answer to that question. The Bible again and again calls us away from these things because they are all too natural for all of us. As people with sin still living inside us, we are better at making war than we are at making peace. We are better at anger than we are at understanding. It is easier to demand than to forgive. It is easier to live with divisions than it is to reconcile with one another. It is easier to be envious than it is to be grateful.
The call to run from these things reminds us that there is something that still exists inside us that is destructive to relationships. There is something dark inside us that makes us crave our own way. There is something in us that makes “I” more attractive than “we.” That something is sin. God’s repeated warnings remind us how much we are still in need of help. And, husband, you don’t first need to be rescued from your wife. No, these warnings in Scripture remind you that you need to be rescued from you, because if you give way to the sin that still lives inside you, you will never live in a marriage of unity, understanding, and love. And, wife, you don’t need to be first rescued from your husband. No, you need to be rescued from you, because if you let the sin inside you have its way, you will destroy any possibility of having a relationship of lasting love with your husband.
The Bible doesn’t simply warn you away from these things; it calls you to a new and better way of living together as well. Words such as these picture that new and better way of living: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, [and] self-control” (Gal. 5:22–23). These things are hard for us because they pull us beyond the comfortable borders of our strength and wisdom. They ask us in faith to do what is not natural. They call us to take our eyes off ourselves and to focus them on God and others.
Acknowledging the war between these two lists does something very important in your heart. It produces in you a deep need for God’s help. It causes you to reach out for the grace that only he can give. It pushes you to seek the grace of rescue, the grace of forgiveness, the grace of wisdom, the grace of enablement, the grace of perseverance, and finally the grace of deliverance. Your need of grace changes the way you respond to your husband or wife. Because you are needy, you aren’t judgmental and impatient in the face of your spouse’s weakness and failure. No one gives grace better than the person who knows he needs it, as well. The self-righteous person, who thinks he has arrived and has little need for change, tends to look down on the person near him who is weak and failing, and he tends to be quickly irritated and quick to judge.
There is no better seedbed for trust than a humble sense of personal neediness. This creates a lifestyle of understanding and gentleness in your marriage and a desire to change and grow together. Do you respond to your husband or wife out of a sense of your own heart need?
TRUST: HOMELAND SECURITY
Trust not only needs to be built, but it needs to be protected. How do you protect the trust that you have built and ensure that the relationship between you and your spouse remains safe and secure? Well, again, the agenda here is pretty simple. First, you need to be committed to talk, talk, and talk. I have been amazed over the years at how little consistent and honest communication goes on between married couples. I think there are many, many couples who simply do not talk. Sure, they discuss the schedule and logistics of their life together, but they do not talk with one another in a heart-disclosing, relationship-protecting way. Sinners living in silence do not produce unity, understanding, and love.
There are also many couples who attempt to talk, but they do it at the wrong time or in the wrong place. The mall is not the place to have a serious conversation about defects in your relationship. Just before your husband leaves the house in the morning is not the optimal time to tell him that you don’t think he really loves you. Blurting out one of your wife’s foibles when you are hanging out with other couples will probably not result in a productive conversation later.
Constant conversation is the model each of us needs to pursue in our marriage. There is probably never a day free of the need for us to communicate about something that has happened in us or between us. The commitment to communicate tells your spouse that you love her, that you take your relationship seriously, and that you are committed to being open to examine yourself and willing to change. All these things protect the trust that is growing between you.
Second, you must listen, listen, and listen. There are ways in which it is much easier to talk than it is to listen. When your spouse is speaking to you about you, it is very easy to listen more to your inner lawyer than it is to listen to her. You know how it works. The moment you realize that your spouse wants you to look at something you have said or done, it is very easy to slip into defensive mode. As your spouse is speaking, you have already begun to defend yourself against what she is saying, even though you haven’t yet said anything in return. Because your mind is occupied with self-defense, you are not hearing her well, even though it may appear like you are listening. When you are doing this, the content you are left with is not so much what she has said to you but your self-defensive twist on what she has attempted to get you to hear and see.
So, listening is not about being passive. Listening is an active commitment. In order to hear your spouse well, you have to fight the battle with your self-righteousness, your tendency to excuse what you have done, and your skill at shifting the blame. Listening is something you have to fight to do.
Along with talking and listening, you need to pray, pray, and pray. In prayer, you thank God for what he has given you (reminding yourself to look around and be grateful), and you reach out for God’s help (reminding yourself of your ongoing need for his grace). It is also wonderful for your spouse to hear you pray for him and for God’s helping hand for you. I have committed myself to pray these three prayers every morning even before I get out of bed:
“God, I am a man in desperate need of help today.”
“I pray that you would send your helpers my way.”
“Lord, give me the humility to receive the help when it comes.”
So when it comes to that bond of trust between you, there is no room to take it for granted, no room to let things slide, and no room to passively hope for the best. No, you get up every day and you work to protect the good things that God has enabled to grow between you.
TRUST: RESTORING WHAT’S BROKEN
Sadly, trust is the fine china of a marriage and so it is capable of shattering. Sometimes it is shattered by years and years of small-moment neglect. Sometimes it is shattered by one huge moment of unfaithfulness or betrayal. Whatever the case, you need to know what to do when the trust between you is broken. Here are some vital steps.
1) Admit Your Need
Some couples seem more committed to protecting the reputation of their marriage outside their home than dealing with the real brokenness that exists inside it. When it is clear that trust has been broken, don’t allow yourself to deny that it is. Don’t compare yourself with other couples who you think are worse off than you. Don’t give way to discouragement and allow yourself to be tempted to give in or give up; admit your plight to God and to one another. Honesty about what is broken is the first step to seeing it rebuilt.
2) Get Help
When trust is broken, you are going to need to reach outside your marriage for help. Why? Because you don’t trust one another enough to work together and do the things that are necessary to get from where you are to where you need to be. You will need someone to hold you accountable for your commitment to change. You will need someone to help you listen well and speak in a way that is productive. You will need someone who can help you negotiate those places where change is costly, and you will need someone who will work with you in faith, even when your faith is weak.
3) Don’t Give Up
When your emotions are frazzled, when your strength is weak, when your hope is dim and your resolve is just about gone, it is very easy to be tempted to cut and run. It is very easy to tell yourself that there is no way out. It is very easy to be cynical, refusing to believe that the other is willing and able to change. It is very easy to begin fantasizing about life on the other side of marriage. It is very easy to go into your shell and turn your home into a motel where two people live, but live without meaningful relationship to one another. There are many people who live in marriages that have long since died. There are husbands and wives who have closed off their feelings and live lonely lives while sharing the same address. There are couples whose relationship has been reduced to perfunctory phone calls, quick text messages, and brief e-mails. There are many couples who have gotten to the point where they don’t like one another very much and don’t really want to be together but haven’t done anything to change the state of their marriage. In a word, most of the people who have given up still live together. It is a painful and discouraging way to live. If your marriage is sick, refuse to let the patient die. Don’t give up! Get angry! No, not at your spouse but at the sin, weakness, and failure that has broken your union, and fight these things as the enemies they are.
4) Stick Your Neck Out
Restoring trust means you have to be willing to take risks again. You can’t have a relationship without being vulnerable, and you can’t be vulnerable without taking risks. Don’t say to yourself, “I’ve been taken once and it won’t happen again,” but, rather, participate in the restoration of the trust between you. You cannot hide from your spouse while you are working with him or her to rebuild what has been broken. The privacy fences you erect to protect yourself also preclude you from relationship to the person from whom you are seeking protection. At some point, if trust is going to live in your marriage once more, you have to be willing to step out of your bunker into the open and take steps toward your husband or wife. You don’t have to do this all at once. Change is more often a process than it is an event. But you must be willing to stick out your neck for trust to be restored.
5) Get Back Up Again
You can be sure that the trust-rebuilding process will not go perfectly. There will be moments of failure. There will be disappointments along the way. There will be moments when you will think that you have made a mistake. There will be times when you will feel that your greatest fears have been realized, that you will never have trust between you again. So, you need to go into rebuilding with realistic expectations. You know you are going to fail at some point, but you also need to know that that failure does not mean you are wasting your time. It simply means that the trust between you is still new and fragile. You need to get back up, address the failure with honesty and grace, and continue to do the good things you have been doing to restore what has been broken.
6) Remember Jesus
When you are working on rebuilding trust, you need to place your hope not in your husband or wife but in the third person in your marriage, the Lord Jesus. He is in with you and for you. As the designer of marriage and the one who brought you together, he has more zeal that your marriage would actually be what he created it to be than you will ever have. He has the wisdom you need. He has the strength you need. He offers the forgiveness you need. And he will not leave you when the going gets tough. Cry out to him; he will never turn a deaf ear to you. Listen to his Word; there is wisdom there that has the power to restore. And when you are discouraged and feel that you are all alone and no one understands, remember Jesus. He suffered rejection and mistreatment. He was not even able to trust his closest companions. On the cross, as he bore our sin, even his Father forsook him. He knows what you are going through, and he is the only one who is ready and able to give you the grace you need as you seek to put the shattered china of your trust together again.
Trust is a beautiful thing when it is the glue that holds a husband and wife together, and it is a sad thing when it is what keeps them apart. Where are you when it comes to trust, and how is God calling you to get from where you are to where he can enable you to be? Don’t be willing to live with shattered trust. Your Lord is in the business of restoration and is ready to help you.