Trust is one of those things that’s often spoken of, often mishandled, often misdirected and rarely understood.

So much in life is built by trust, and sadly so much is destroyed by lack of it. One of the things divorce or any broken relationship specifically does is try to take away trust, not just in the culprit or culprits so to speak, but in everyone. I’ve experienced, or have heard others talk about not trusting men or women, not trusting family or friends who they felt weren’t there in their time of need, not trusting the legal process, not trusting the healing process, not even trusting God to get them through what they are enduring.

Nowadays it’s has become far too common to not trust people, and is sort of used as a badge of honor or code of ethic. There are even new fangled songs about having “No New Friends”, but as I was riding down 3rd Avenue West in my former neighborhood of Birmingham, Alabama an old song called “Friends” by Jody Watley came on. The lyrics, part of which go,  “Friends will let you down. Friends won’t be around. When you need them most.
Where are your friend” reminded me that a lack of trust has been unfortunately popular for quite a long time.

Call me strange, but I love the thought of friends and truly look forward to meeting new people and adding to my circle. The thing about it is, through MANY trials and errors with trust, I have learned that the real person who often shouldn’t be trusted is the one doing the trusting, ME. God gives us all a spirit of discernment that is meant to be used to help us carefully decide who should be in our lives and who should not. However, how many of us have actually prayed before accepting someone’s will you be my friend check ‘yes’ or ‘no’ request? How many of us have done a reference check (literally) before going out with someone, talking to someone online, meeting for Starbucks, exchanging numbers or exchanging wedding rings? How many of us have simply said, “God, do you want me around this person?” then waited on the answer and acted accordingly, not matter how fine he was or cute she was?

If we were to look back honestly at the caution signs that must have been there prior to deciding to let another person in our lives whether as a spouse, friend, business partner or mere associate, we will see that signals were in place often screaming…”WARNING!!!! WARNING!!!”

Not trusting people, the right people, leaves us in isolation and prey for the devil to pounce on. That’s all the enemy wants. Too bad the devil is defeated and we have discernment that can push us out of fear of trust and into healthy, God-chosen relationships. Trust me.

@AngelaMMoore316