An Amazing Trust

I have been heavily involved in Christian leadership for almost 40 years and I have never experienced what I am experiencing now. I regularly get the privilege of walking into a room and feeling a level of trust that is both humbling and exhilarating.

We are now completing our 10th year with the Omega Project. I know what it feels like to be glared at and stared at with little or no trust coming my way. In the early years, most of the men who came into the program gave little pieces of begrudging trust in exchange for a roof over their heads. I’ve lived through years where any progress was hard fought and seemed like we were trying to tunnel through the Rocky Mountains with a fork.

So to walk into a room of addicts and feel a completely different atmosphere is … amazing. It is shocking. How did we get there? How did we get to a place where there is a healthy level of what we call the one another lifestyle? I wish I knew. I wish I could bottle it up and package it and sell it. But it doesn’t happen that way.

Heart change comes through heart choice. There were a whole lot of small decisions along the way. Somewhere along the line, I changed. I grew. I responded at a different level that made me easier to trust. At some point a few trusted and started getting some good results. Seeing the results, more trusted. And then something unbelievable happened. The trust moved from a few individuals to where trust became the ruling atmosphere. Sure there are skeptics in the crowd, but their negativity is mostly swallowed up in a way that it becomes largely invisible.

In most Christian groups, there always seems to be some self-appointed person who thinks it is his job to keep the pastor/leader humble … to monitor everything said or done in the group to make sure that it is right. I can’t say that those "monitors" have ever done much to help me toward humility. But to walk into a room of people who are honestly looking for you to mentor them, to give them strength for life … that is humbling. That is sobering. That is a gut check that causes you to ask yourself, “What do I truly have to give?” And stirs up thoughts of, “I need to be careful that what I do and say truly is of God and is beneficial.”

I know. There are those who take any level of trust and run with it in perverted ways and then abuse those who give them trust. That is sick, but it is the way of the selfish person. Those of us who are truly working at dying to self should not be that way.

What is the trust/respect factor in your relationships? Are you in any groups where there is a high level of trust? If not, your growth will be minimal. Trust dictates openness and accountability which limits or accelerates growth. Have you died to self in a way that others can trust you? Do you work to see the best in others? Do you think from a point of view of “What is God doing in this situation or in this person?” Do you stay away from being critical? Do you give space to others to speak into your life? Do you cultivate a trust environment in groups you are a part of?

Trust. There is nothing like it. I hope you can experience it at a high level with those who are worthy of it—those who are choosing to die to self and to bless others!