Trust...essential to relationship

What is the key to any relationship?

¹Trust.

What is the key to trust?

Knowing (believing) the party you are engaging with truly has your best interest in mind, i.e. they love ²you.

As someone proves their genuine care by their words and actions and is not engaging us simply to get or take something from us, our trust grows. If someone over time demonstrates they are using you, your trust wanes and your caution grows. This takes time because outward actions don't always reveal inward motivation right away.

Some would argue love is the key to any relationship. And this would be true if we weren't so deeply broken and distrusting. 

Love binds a relationship together, but love is not received until we trust the one who offers it. To say it another way, we don't "buy in" to someone's kind gestures and overtures of care if we don't trust they are genuine i.e. that their kindness is really kindness and not a "trap" to allure us into a relationship in order to ³use us.

The problem is you can love someone with everything in you but if the one you love does not trust you (i.e. they think you are trying to use them to get something from them instead of give something to them) your love will not "land" i.e. be accepted. This is why different groups and people responded in an exactly opposite way to Christ e.g. religious leaders vs. the sick and poor.

To illustrate, we are told God so loved the world he gave his only Son, yet not everyone who has been told this is clamoring to pursue or receive God's offer. In fact, most do not accept this offer of love even after it is extended and explained. Why? They don't trust the one making the offer or believe it is true. They are suspicious of God, who is making the offer. They don't believe his claims about himself and about them. They somehow are convinced God does not have their best interest at heart, even in light of this most significant and wonderful evidence.

As an illustration, we likely know of or heard of foster kids being assimilated into a family and how the foster parents' hearts often break trying to convince the child he/she is loved. Why? Because the child brushes off those attempts and will even act out to see if these "parents" still love them in all their ugliness i.e. the child wonders if the new parents really love them or do they simply feel sorry for them or want the child to meet some need in the potential new parents? 

Why is this? They are "jaded" as they say. After being jerked around emotionally by opening themselves up to being loved by other so-called parents, only to have it taken away, they choose not to open themselves up to the possible hurt of losing love all over again.

By God's grace, you can control how you treat others, i.e. treat them in a loving vs. an unloving way. You can not, however, control whether they will receive your love. Only God can open their hearts to receive love. Our loving others may be the means, but when all is said and done, God must open their hearts and eyes to see the love that is there, i.e. his love coming through us to them.

Loving someone is what we are called to do. Being used (abused) by someone is not. 

(We may choose to let someone "use us" for a time so we might win them to Christ, but this is a separate topic). 

Love without trust?

Can you love someone without trusting them? Yes. You can sincerely want what's best for someone ⁴you have no trust in. 

This is where we get confused. We think, how can I forgive someone who is not trustworthy? You can forgive them because you truly care about them. But that does not mean you trust them or should entrust yourself to them. Love should be a given, trust is earned.

This is also true of our relationship with God on both sides. 

As we come to believe God always and only wants what's best for us, our trust grows.

When God sees we genuinely love him for who he is and not just using him to get something else, he trusts us more and entrusts us with more of his blessings, knowing we will use what he gives to love others, thereby honoring him.
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Footnotes: 

¹Someone would say love is vital, which is ultimately true. However, if the one seeking to love us is not trusted, we will never receive or experience their love. This is true not only from other people but also from God.

²self interest is not the same as selfishness. If you look at every promise of scripture, what is the appeal? These are promises made to you, i.e. self. In fact, self-interest is assumed when we are told to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. It is not condemned but merely appealed to as the standard by which we treat others. 

The issue isn't whether it's valid to care about ourselves, but how is "self" best cared for. Self is not best cared for by self (which is selfishness) but by God. For us to focus on self-caring is bondage, simply because we can never truly provide for ourselves that which we most need...infinite and eternal love and care. To focus on God is freedom because only he alone can love in the way we need and were designed to be loved i.e. with infinite love from an infinite source. 

³If each party is seeking the best of the other, they both will benefit. The key is what drives that action that benefits others. 

To be clear, few relationships are based solely on each party seeking only to give something and not get something. Few (if any) of us are that grounded in our walk with God (and thereby full of his love so that he is our primary source for love instead of our spouse or some other significant relationship)

We get into relationships because we get something out of them. But that is not the same as getting into a relationship to take or demand something from the other. All relationships result in both benefiting or they wouldn't exist. This, however, isn't the issue. The issue is why do people primarily seek relationships, to get or to give.

I would guess many relationships start out more with an eye on getting more than giving. But as each person matures, it shifts in time to giving more than getting (at least by one party), otherwise, it would not likely last.

Any healthy relationship is reciprocal. However, there is a difference between giving and receiving love and giving to get love. Receiving love is vital in any relationship, but it differs from engaging in a relationship for getting or taking. A relationship based solely on getting is classic co-dependence.

A key indicator of the difference is gratitude. One expressing gratitude for the other partner is because they recognize their kindness was a gesture of giving/loving, not taking. 

A key indicator someone is primarily about getting or taking is anger. Getting angry when one does not get what they want, or the other doesn't give them what they demand, is an indication the relationship is not based on love but on what they can get or take out of the relationship.

To say it simply, a truly loving relationship (on both sides) is based on what you give, not what you get. In this kind of relationship, both are still getting but as the fruit of a loving relationship, not the goal. 

⁴You can also extend love to someone who does not trust you, but until there is trust, it will not "land". Loving them over time, however, can build the trust needed for it to finally break through.