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Daily Reflections: Trust


Ouch.  The daily reflection for June 23rd hits so close to home it genuinely hurts.  Trust was always a problem for me. When you grow up and learn that being honest about your mistakes gets you beaten as bad as lying, you learn that being sneaky is the smart way to go. If you're going to get a beatdown either way, and least being sneaky gives you a shot of avoiding some pain.

That is all well and good when you are a child and have no choices over your environment, but I've been a grown ass man for some time, so I have to think, act, and TRUST as a man.  There is no room for  being sneaky in my life now.  And just because I was, doesn't mean that everyone else is.

Sometimes people omit things because they simply forgot.  Sometimes because it is completely inconsequential to them.  Just because I omitted things to avoid pain, physical or emotional, doesn't mean that that's everyone's motive for doing so. This illustrates another point.   Don't make assumptions!

My life demands unrelenting but loving honesty.  That is an expectation I have of myself.  I can't put that expectation on others. I know most folks talk about brutal honesty, but that implies being knowingly hurtful.  I can't do that.  I have to be lovingly honest.  That means I know that no matter how difficult it is to share, my honesty will come from a place of love and compassion. I'm not trying to mince words or spare feelings; I'm just trying to be loving AND honest in all things.

The fact is, when I make a covenant decision with myself and God to be honest in all my affairs, I have no more room to behave as a sneaky, scared child. I'm a grown ass man and will behave like one.  When I say what I feel, what I think, what I did, or what my motives are, I'm prepared to live out the consequences, the people who belong in my life will accept me. That is God's will at it's purest.

No more bending my character to appease the people I want in my life.  That is my will at it's worst.

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