Over the years we meet a lot of people, create friendships, and develop a lot of alliances. But the question is, do we develop relationships we can trust?
We are reminded that Jesus said we are to love one another as He loved all of us. We find ourselves relearning just what it means to love and trust each other.
Love and trust must first exist if we are to work together. No matter how many times a resolution is issued denouncing the horror of mistreatment and hatred directed toward any race, without visibly acting to resolve it by exhibiting the love Jesus mandated, the resolution nullifies the essence of love and causes mistrust to grow and thrive.
Not too long ago, I visited with a sister who informed me she was getting ready to go on a mission trip to South Africa. I asked her why the people there so readily accept them. She replied, “It’s because we stay in contact with them on a regular basis. We don’t just show up once a year and pass out a few gifts, then leave them in the same condition we found them. We spend time walking around within their culture. We sit and listen to their needs and concerns. We get to know their ways and customs; the names of their children and their elders. We don’t try to change them and make them to be like us. We want them to be themselves. In other words, we gain their trust and acceptance by understanding who they are and loving them just as they are.”
She went on to say, “They would never trust us if we only expressed an interest in them once a year or showed concern for them when we were face to face with them.”
This speaks to, what I consider to be, one of the most critical problems, I can’t expect you to be me, and you can’t expect me to be you. We must learn to embrace the diversity God created.
The world we live in is like grandmother’s patchwork quilt. It takes all different sizes, shapes and colors to make it beautiful. By the same token, this patchwork theology shows the completeness of the redemption process that Christ said was finished at Calvary. He died once, and He died for all.
I believe trust is at the very root of why it’s so difficult for people to get over the past. It’s the one thing that is never talked about.
There are no workshops or conferences held concerning the issue of trust, but for us to work together and love one another as Christ mandated, a platform of trust must be built. How can two walk together unless trust does its part?
If we are to trust and love each other, it cannot be done under the cover of trying to make us identical. We must accept each other as we are.
God made us like He wanted us, and when He finished putting the quilt together and creating the worlds, in the book of Genesis, He said it was good. That says to me we are all wonderfully made according to God’s infallible blueprint.
If we are to achieve racial harmony, we must understand that racial diversity had to be the plan of God, motioned by Christ, seconded and carried out by The Holy Spirit (John 1:1). We are what God said we should be.
If we are to over come the ills that plague our ecclesiastical society and live out the words of the old hymn that says,“When we all see Jesus, we will sing and shout the victory,” we must become able to trust each other because trust is the glue that binds us together.
If we remember we are bought with a price, we are not our own, we will love as Christ commanded us, then trust would automatically be the resulting fruit.
