Trust. A Weighty Thought

When I was about ten, I had a friend from the neighborhood. I didn't know him well. I found out later that he wasn't doing well, that there were things going on with him I had no idea about.

There was a corner store we'd walk to. The young man who bagged the groceries there was, to me, the coolest person around. He was in high school, which when you're ten makes him basically a grown man. He was kind, and funny, and he played along with us. Over time we'd built a real friendship, the kind a little kid builds with an older guy who actually treats him like he matters. He knew me. My grocery bagger friend.

One day the kid from my neighborhood told me to distract him. I remember thinking, why would I do that? I liked the guy. But the three of us started playing tag around the store, and while my grocery bagger friend was busy with me, the other kid took a bottle of soda and slipped it into his coat. He did it on purpose. I saw it the same moment my grocery bagger friend did.

He said, "Hey, come here." The kid ran, got maybe two steps, and was caught. They took him to the back. I didn't know what to do, so I left. I hadn't gotten a block before he caught up to me, crying, saying they were going to call the police, that they'd warned him never to come back and then let him go.

I didn't say much. I understood by then what he'd used me for. We didn't hang out after that.

The next time I went to the store, I said hello to my grocery bagger friend the way I always did. A big hello, like nothing had happened. He just looked at me. He shook his head. And he said, to the cashier next to him, something about how some people take advantage of your trust.

I had almost forgotten I was part of it. That was the worse part. I wasn't the one who stole anything. But I was connected to the whole thing. And I lost him. That friendship was over. I walked home thinking about how much trust matters. I've never forgotten it.

You can't have a relationship without trust. Any relationship, big or small. Break the trust and the relationship breaks with it. He couldn't stay my friend, not because he was cruel, but because he couldn't trust me.

That's the thing I keep turning over. Not whether I can trust God. I hear that question all the time. The one that stopped me is the other way around. Can God trust me? Because I've done to Him what I did to my grocery bagger friend. He asks something of me, and I quietly do the other thing. I ignore what He's made clear, and I tell myself the relationship is fine.

The Trust Inside the Commandment

Jesus said, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. I used to hear that as a rule. It's not a rule. It's a trust. He's telling me the truth: He's going to let me choose. He allows me to obey or not, to love Him or not. He hands me a real choice and invites me to walk with Him.

That freedom is the whole thing, and it's worth sitting with. When you're free to choose, you're choosing between walking with Jesus forever or walking the other way. Both are eternal.

But That's Not Fair

Someone will say that's not really free. That He's forcing my hand, pick Him or go to hell, and that's no choice at all. I understand it. But look at how you already live. You make the right call all day long to stay out of prison, and nobody says the law is coercing you. Same principle. Nobody is holding a gun to you. You just don't want the consequence, so you choose well.

I'll say the harder version of it the way I've had to say it to myself. If you'd rather keep your sin than let it go, knowing where it leads, then somewhere you've decided you like it too much. That isn't God being unfair. That's me showing what I actually love.

There Is No Neutral Spot in the Middle

Which puts me in the middle. Standing there, free, picking who to get close to: the enemy and his ways, or Jesus and His. There is no neutral spot in the middle. My choice is my direction. It's my vote for who I'm going to follow. Not choosing is choosing.

So it comes down to two questions I can't get around. Who am I loving? Who am I trusting? Everything I do is answering them, whether I mean it to or not.

Grace to Grow, Not a License

Now, there is grace. More than I can measure. But grace is given to me to grow, not handed to me as a license to keep the very thing I'm meant to be leaving. Paul asked it straight: should we keep sinning so grace has more to cover? God forbid.

And Scripture doesn't soften the other side of it. There are real warnings. Keep sinning on purpose and you can sear your conscience until you stop feeling it. Hebrews goes further. A person can reach a place where there is no more sacrifice left for them, where they've put Christ to open shame and the cross stops doing for them what it was meant to do. There is a limit. I don't say that to scare anyone. I say it because it's true, and pretending it isn't is its own kind of lie. You cannot follow the flesh and be right with Him at the same time. The two don't run together.

What I Do When I Get It Wrong

I get this wrong. Still. And here is what I've learned to do when I do.

I don't go to my own strength. That's the old reflex: clean it up myself, try harder, prove I'm fine. I've stopped doing that. I go to Jesus and I say the truest thing I've got: You know me. You see me. I need your help. And then I let Him actually help, which is harder than it sounds.

And when I get it right, when I chose Him in the small thing nobody saw, I don't take the credit. I thank Him. The only reason I'm in a right relationship with Him at all is the grace that got me here.

Here's what I hold onto. His grace is long-standing. He doesn't turn us away when we get it wrong and come back to Him, and He never has.

That's a different story than taking the freedom He gives and using it to keep sinning, figuring grace will cover it anyway. From the outside the two can look alike. They aren't. One cares about Him. The other is using Him. I want to be the one who keeps coming back to Him.