At Trust's End

"At trust's end, we cease to be humans"

“Be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves” [Matthew 10:16]

Expressions of regret, remorse, care, compassion, and love, amongst other emotions, cease to mean anything when we stop believing them. The day we stopped comprehending sincere emotions, that day, those very emotions stopped existing. Caring is what it is, only because it is understood by everyone – or at least most people. Anger can only retain its meaning when the one you express it towards understands it. Ever been furious at a baby and he/she just kept laughing? Your anger meant nothing to that baby; that emotion was simply not recognized by the child at the time, because that child had not grown enough to master the elements that make up the human person. Little wonder as to why your relationship with that baby is so limited.

We live in a highly polarized generation – one most easily explained by the idea encapsulated in Jesus’ statement: “because of the increase of wickedness, the love of men shall wax cold” [Matthew 24:12]. Due to so much wickedness in our world, many have lost love. Today, it is harder than ever before to believe the sincere people but much easier to believe the dishonest folk. We watch infomercials discussing opportunities to help children, nations, and our world, but the first thought that comes to many minds is how the man on the television is only seeking his own gain. We are quick to think that everyone’s after our money. Though we often think we’re being smart, we’re actually truly expressing the state of our hearts – what our humanity has become.

Imagine a world at trust’s end. Imagine a world where every truth is a lie, love is hate, caring is selfish, and hope is foolish. Imagine our world at trust’s end. Imagine a world that didn’t believe your tears at the death of your father just because he was rich and left you a will, forgetting that a father’s a father no matter how good or bad of it he is. Imagine a world where the poor and needy reject the pure no-strings-attached help of the rich and powerful [no matter how caring they truly are] for fear of that rich one returning to them later in future to get his payment or returns-on-investment. Imagine a world where your love was misunderstood for an attempt to take advantage of the one you love, where your concerns were misunderstood for an opportunity to mock those in trouble, a world where every emotion of yours you can think of – platonic care, brotherly/sisterly love, and motherly/fatherly affection – was confused with evil beyond your conception.

Don’t be too small in your heart, too closed in your mind, or too myopic in your sight to understand the danger of a world at trust’s end. As seen in the opening scripture, the idea is not to abandon all caution, ditch discernment, or throw out wisdom; rather, the imploration to us all is that we make room for trust - just a little more room to believe the man crying over his daughter’s grave, the child claiming it was rape and not consented sex, the rich man desiring to change the lives of many impoverished fellow human beings, the preacher who believes he has a gospel that can change men’s lives. Let us believe them just for a second; after all, it is said “innocent until proven guilty.” Don’t be quick to assume that everything on television is fake [though a lot of it is]. Good will always overcome evil. It has to be so.

When we question motives, disbelieve sincere emotion, reject help through a belief of the worst concerning the helper [when we do all these], we lose ourselves. We lose the bond that holds us together when we don’t deem other human beings as capable of genuine emotion, the same emotions we express and expect others to believe. At trust’s end, we cease to be humans – we become babies – limiting our potentials to love, communicate, and create the world in which we live.