“Oh, the joys of those who are kind to the poor! The Lord rescues them when they are in trouble. The Lord protects them and keeps them alive. He gives them prosperity in the land and rescues them from their enemies. The Lord nurses them when they are sick and restores them to health. “O Lord,” I prayed, “have mercy on me. Heal me, for I have sinned against you.” But my enemies say nothing but evil about me. “How soon will he die and be forgotten?” they ask. They visit me as if they were my friends, but all the while they gather gossip, and when they leave, they spread it everywhere. All who hate me whisper about me, imagining the worst. “He has some fatal disease,” they say. “He will never get out of that bed!” Even my best friend, the one I trusted completely, the one who shared my food, has turned against me. Lord, have mercy on me. Make me well again, so I can pay them back! I know you are pleased with me, for you have not let my enemies triumph over me. You have preserved my life because I am innocent; you have brought me into your presence forever. Praise the Lord, the God of Israel, who lives from everlasting to everlasting. Amen and amen!”
Psalms 41:1-13 NLT
Some might say that the Bible is filled with passages that teach us not to trust people. This is certainly one of those passages. Yet, the truth is more nuanced than that. The Bible explores trust in a way that seems unintuitive to man. Man believes that trust can be earned, and certainly it can. But the truth is that trust can’t be maintained by the human creature on his own merit. Our ability to be trustworthy is limited and imminent in its failure. In other words, the one trustworthy thing about humanity is that it is not trustworthy. Instead, the Bible tells us that the wise place their trust in God. Notice that this is always couched in the idea that he does not change and that his character is oriented toward blessing us. Truthfully, humans are not trustworthy, because they are human. We should perhaps note that the perfect humans were the ones who committed sin. When we believe a human must live up to this standard of his own merit, we will be let down. When we find that someone is trustworthy, we should assume it’s because they are meeting that standard by the merit of some other thing that is a result of God’s involvement. Perhaps they follow Christ’s example, God’s word or commiserate with his people. Yet, our trust for them must always be tempered by the knowledge that they are accomplishing a task that is beyond the sum of their parts. This will help us to be blessed when they do manage to be trustworthy, but also keep us from emotional devastation when they falter.
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