“When I am afraid, I put my trust in You.”
Psalms 56:3
The book of Genesis is filled with narratives of trust, the break-down of trust and the rebuilding of trust because it, more than anything else, is critical to the continuation of a relationship. Eve trusts a snake more than she trusted God. Adam trusted Eve when he ate of the forbidden tree. Both of them lost God’s trust and paid a steep price for it. There is a midrash which records that the trees of the Garden of Eden were heard voicing amazement. “That one walking about turned out to be a thief, a deceiver who even thought to deceive his Creator.” Alternatively, “The ministering angels were heard voicing delight: ‘That one walking about will soon be dead and gone.” The mythical trees in this fabulous garden were not silent observers. They were witnesses and critics. The saw right away that deceit was built into the story and would continue as a facet of the human condition.
In the Abraham narratives, Abraham lied about the status of his wife as his sister. Sarah lost the trust of her handmaid Hagar and vice-versa. Abraham trusted God to make good on the promise of a people in a homeland despite famine and infertility. Isaac’s trust was breached when Rebekah manipulated Jacob into fooling his father. Jacob put his love in a son and his coat only to lose him. Jacob's other sons got rid of Joseph and handed their father a striped and bloodied coat. After the brothers come down to Egypt and benefit from Joseph’s success, they still believe he is out to get them and will activate his plan after Jacob’s death. They never regained trust as a family. The book of Genesis ends.
Now, in the thick of Genesis readings, we understand the ultimate cost of the deceit that travels as a pernicious undercurrent all through these family stories. When trust breaks down in a family, it seems impossible to regain. We end this biblical book on this somber note. It forces us to look inward and ask ourselves: do our lives have the drama and deceit of a biblical book? Has trust been broken that cannot be repaired?
In The Speed of Trust, Stephen M. R. Covey contends that one of our great leadership myths is that trust cannot be regained once its lost. Covey says that to regain trust after an act of betrayal or even an honest mistake requires the same path to restoration: increasing personal credibility and engaging in behaviors that inspire trust, that go out of the way to show you are good on your word. He also adds an important caveat: “...when you’re talk about restoring trust, you’re talking about changing someone else’s feelings about you and confidence in you. And that’s not something you can control. You can’t force people to trust you.” And although you can’t force trust, you must do your utmost to regain it.
“Trust is a function of two things,” Covey writes, “character and competence. Character includes your integrity, your motive, your intent with people. Competence includes your capabilities, your skills, your results, your track record. And both are vital.” In work or home situations, it’s the combination of who you are and what you do that will determine whether or not someone should trust you. Covey advises us to think of our relationships as trust accounts with the understanding that withdrawals and deposits may be hard to measure.
A lot of biblical quotes on trust focus on God, like our quote above: “When I am afraid, I put my trust in You.” It’s easy to understand why we might put our trust in God when humans fail us, but we can’t only put our trust in a Higher Being. Living in a world where everyone is a potential suspect, where the shoe is always about to drop is, simply put, exhausting. It saps the joy out of everyday living. Perhaps because so many narratives - from the beginning all the way to the end of Genesis - involve breaches of trust, we - its readers - will see the terrible cost of deception and guard ourselves. It’s a good time to ask about our own trust accounts and how they’re doing.
Have you put deposits in someone else’s trust account or are you in overdraft right now?
Whose trust do you have to earn?
Who needs your trust right now?
Shabbat Shalom