Can I Trust You?
Proverbs 4:24-27 Don't bend the truth or say things that you know are not right. Keep your eyes on the path, and look straight ahead. Make sure you are going the right way, and nothing will make you fall. Don't go to the right or to the left, and you will stay away from evil.
Can I ask you a question? Are you trustworthy? In other words, are you a person who is worthy of my trust … or not? It may seem a bit blunt, but the answer really matters.
Friedrich Nietzsche, a 19th Century German philosopher with whom, by the way, I disagree on many things, once said this:
I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on, I can’t believe you!
For me to trust you, I need to know that you’re on the straight and narrow – in what’s going on in your heart, in how you see things, in what you say, and in how you behave. I need to know that who you are on the outside, is the same as who you are on the inside. I need to know that I can believe what you say, and that you’ll do what you said you’d do.
I recently had someone whom I trusted – a man who stepped forward to help me with a venture – pull out the moment the going got tough. I still deal with him. I even like him. But I just don’t trust him anymore, because he’s demonstrated through his behaviour, that he can’t be relied upon. It’s sad, but it’s the way it has to be.
The reality is that some people say one thing and do another. They pretend to be one thing, but eventually their true colours come out.
Don’t bend the truth or say things that you know are not right. Keep your eyes on the path, and look straight ahead. Make sure you are going the right way, and nothing will make you fall. Don’t go to the right or to the left, and you will stay away from evil. (Proverbs 4:24-27)
So, might I ask you again, can the rest of us trust you? Do you bend the truth, do you say things that you know aren’t right, or not? Do you keep focussed on the road ahead, do you stay on course, or do you stray off to the right or to the left when evil tempts you?
The degree to which you can be trusted (or not) says a lot about the faith that you profess to have in Jesus. People are looking for someone they can trust, someone they can depend on.
Are you that someone, or not?
That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.
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