Trust & Forgiveness

A marriage cannot be expected to survive for long without these two foundational principles working in tandem.

Likewise… a couple that is trying to rebuild their broken marriage cannot expect to make it very far without a clear understanding of how trust and forgiveness should work.

That right there is where we will jump into the discussion…

Let us set the stage.

What we have to teach here is critical information for anyone who is attempting to rebuild their marriage. Now be honest with yourself here… How many of you reading this blog post right now have either said or heard this phrase: They say they have forgiven me, why don’t they trust me then?

The natural reaction to this statement (if you are the one seeking forgiveness) is to then assume that you are not truly forgiven if your spouse does not trust you. This is a mistake in thinking.

Trust and forgiveness are two mutually exclusive concepts that work independent of each other. Let us explain…

Forgiveness

The human heart does not naturally want to forgive. We like to harbor resentment, hold grudges and in extreme cases even seek revenge.

That is why having Christ as the center of your life is so important. Christ came to offer forgiveness of sins. For us as fallen humans, locked in our flesh accepting the gift God has offered us is the only true way to grant forgiveness.

Here’s what we mean…

As a born again believer in Jesus Christ, there is no room for resentment in your heart and allowing the Holy Spirit of God to dictate your life makes true forgiveness possible for us as corrupted people.

When Christ died on the cross, it was not just for you and your sins alone. It was for all the sins of mankind. Knowing this to be true in your heart allows you to see things from a new perspective. If my Master has offered forgiveness to my spouse, who am I to deny it… for the servant is not above the Master.

Trust

As much as forgiveness is given freely… Trust has to be earned all the more. Listen, trust is earned over time. Earned being the operable word here.

There is only one way to gain trust back once there has been a breach in that trust. That is through consistent, day by day, step by step actions over time. There is no short cut concerning trust.

There is one thing we have discovered about trust during our recovery process. The amount of time it takes to regain trust is directly proportional to the amount of pain breaching that trust has caused in the first place.

It is also incumbent upon the person seeking to regain trust to make sure their actions match their words. In the bible (James 5:12) it says: “let your “yes” be yes and your “no” be no…” This means if you say your are going to do something… do it!

We trust that the sun will rise again tomorrow morning when we lay our heads down to sleep at night. Correct?

Why is that?

There is no guarantee that this will happen. We trust that it will, however, rise just as it always does because it has risen every single day of our lives without fail. Just imagine if tomorrow you wake up and the sun never rises? How long will it take for you to trust it to rise again?

OK, that might be an extreme example… but you get the point. Trust forms and is maintained through consistent action over time.

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Watch this video for more on: Trust and Forgiveness

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