So you lied to me – Trust is Earned My Friend

Broken trust and broken promises have a way of chipping at the core of a persons being that trust is diminished. I was thinking about the various instances where the people I trusted broke my faith in them. Anger filled me like a raging tornado. It’s one thing to know the principle of forgiveness but to operate when the time calls for it is the time when we are truly tested. 

So you lied to me…doesn’t mean that I’ll trust you so easily again. When people break that level of confidence we have in another, it is difficult to regain it at the same level as it were. Once it is broken it is broken. Count the cost before you lie to someone or do something that compromises the confidence they have in you.

I always keep saying to people I encounter “count the cost” but it seems that it runs through one ear and out the other. COUNT THE COST of your actions. You will notice that in many of my posts I emphasize on character building traits. This isn’t going to be a lecture on how to be a good person. I’m talking about learning to change for the better good for yourself and others.

Those that have lost my trust try harder to convince me to regain it but don’t understand that to earn back a person’s confidence and trust that you have broken, you have to PROVE beyond a reasonable doubt that you are actively seeking to change your ways. This is where we need to exercise prudence and discernment. TRUST IS EARNED. It’s unfortunate, but people have to work even harder if they want to regain the confidence they had established in the relationship that they broke.

I always say to my friends that you should “take your time to trust people” but even when you do, there are people that you may encounter in life that know how to deceive you masterfully. When the truth is revealed, the shock is so immense that it can cause one to implode from the inside. I encountered something like that recently and have been in shock for a while so I know what I’m talking about. Even though I have forgiven the person not out of my own strength but by seeking God in the matter, my confidence in the person has changed in that I can no longer trust them despite the forgiveness. It is true that “Love is Blind”.

Just because you forgive doesn’t mean you can trust so easily again. That I think is foolishness. Trust is earned…if the offender wants to regain trust they’ll have to work hard to convince me and that is what happens to us when we are betrayed. Betrayal is a terrible thing to experience but it has been a learning experience for me. I also take things into perspective and consider that it is good that I learned the TRUE CHARACTER of the person now so that I no longer continue to be deceived by them. Things could have escalated and turned out much worse if I was not revealed sooner rather than later.

A person once said to me “Be careful how you burn your bridges”. I agree with this statement. If you value a relationship, then treat it like how you would value Silver or Gold. If you seek a relationship of value, then you must understand that it is built through trust and if you break it, you have compromised the value of the relationship.

People can be fickle, but this fickle-mindedness doesn’t understand the value of trust because it seeks self-gratification and is also another characteristic of PRIDE. Why value trust when it can be so easily broken? Trust is needed in order to have a relationship to begin with. If you can’t be trusted with little, you can’t be trusted with much. We as humans are relational beings and TRUST is required in order to maintain relationships.

Even though I have experienced some disappointing characters in my walk, I must say that there are great people out there that have been my support. It hurts when you lose confidence in a relationship where trust is broken because you begin to contemplate whether or not the whole relationship was a farce?

Eventually, I must come to terms with all of this and decide to move on. This doesn’t mean I deny the pain, but I choose not to remain wounded by all of this forever. There is no point in doing that. I have had several bad experiences with certain people I trusted but I think that even when we are hurt, it shouldn’t change you so dramatically that you become too weary and distant towards people in general. When you start to do that, you’ll develop a sense of defensiveness that comes from being broken-hearted. It isn’t healthy to stay that way for too long so forgiveness is needed to release that bitterness from that betrayal.

Can I move on after the betrayal?

Yes, you can. You don’t have to stay there. If you become distrustful over every person that you encounter after the bad experience, you will lose chances of connecting with people that are there to help build you.

Don’t let one bad experience rob you from gaining a better relationship with another. 

My Last Note: In the end, when trust is broken, you should keep in mind that it is not so much that you learn about the other person, but you must learn about yourself.

Are you too trusting? Were there signs in the initial stages that should have been warning signs not to pursue this relationship? How deceitful was the individual? Has it changed you for the better or for the worse? Did you forgive and let go? Have you sharpened your discernment?

Don’t lose faith in people just because of a few bad apples. Instead, learn from these experiences and Thank God for revealing the truth from the lies despite the pain accompanied by the betrayal. The truth helps you to walk a wiser person. Learn from it and move on with appreciation.