I personally live by the philosophy that I never trust a person who says trust me. If you have to tell me to trust you, then chances are I probably shouldn’t trust you! But to be fair trust is pretty tricky. It’s one of those things that has to be earned. You can’t just assume someone will trust you. You have to go out of your way to live a life that is trustworthy.

But there’s a flip side to this trust game. Sometimes we have to go out on a limb and extend trust in an effort to help someone earn trust. In other words, when we care about someone we invest in them with little things to help them earn our trust in bigger things.

This month we’re in a series on loving well. We started with the question Do You Love Me? where we addressed the matter of transactional vs sacrificial love. You’re welcome to go ahead and check that out now. This week we dive into the realm of love and trust and how the two are very closely linked. You see the operating principle here is that when you love someone you will trust them. It’s honestly no harder than that. But let’s spend a few minutes describing what this means.

Trust is one of those gifts that is so powerful and so meaningful that to give it or receive it is a very special thing. But when we’re stingy with our trust it makes our love harder to see. Let me give you an example.

I’ve been married for almost 17 years, but we’ve known each other far longer than that! In those 17 years of life together we’ve learned a lot about each other. We’ve learned to grow to love each other more, and as that love grows the level of trust grows with it. This means that we don’t always have to be in the same place at the same time for us to know that we’re loved. We don’t have to be talking 24 hours a day to know that depth of love we share is still just as solid as it ever has been.

And this isn’t true just for married couples either. Sometimes there are people in our lives for whom we care deeply and yet for reasons beyond our control we can’t see each other (because of distance, trips, vacations, life changes, etc). A real love, the sacrificial kind we discussed last week, doesn’t need constant contact to know it is real, because this love trusts. It trusts that it will always be there. It trusts because it’s seen it to be true. It trusts because of the history of the relationship. It trusts because it knows that it has received the same trust in return.

The long and short is that love and trust run hand in hand. When we truly love someone we will do everything in our power to earn their trust. When we have a sacrificial love for a friend or partner in life, we’ll invest our own trust in them even when it’s not fully earned. When we live this kind of love, our trust, even when not treated perfectly, will be handled with grace.

But why? Why is trust so important as it relates to love? I believe the best answer to that is found in the bible where we see the greatest example of love. Paul writes in his letter love is patient, kind, doesn’t envy or boast. It’s not arrogant or rude. It’s not irritable or resentful. Rejoices in truth, not rumors or assumptions. Love bears all things, trusts all things, hopes all things, endures all things. It never ends.

To be honest, we don’t stumble across this kind of love everyday. If you happen to be so lucky as to find someone who loves you this way, cherish every second of that relationship because that love is a gift that God alone can give you.

Live. Love. Trust.