One of the ways my oldest son used in dealing with me was by using the phrase “No faith!” With that one statement, I was often stopped in my tracks. Whatever parental concerns I had been expressing are silenced.
It’s not fun being confronted, even by your own children. They, along with your spouse know the right things to say and how to say them in a way that stops you cold.
Whenever my son used that phrase on me, I was stopped cold. I knew that any further talk was going nowhere. He was at the same time confronting my lack of faith in him and telling me to trust him rather than distrust him.
Fear, even parental fears are rooted in misplaced faith. His confrontations remind me that at those moments I am showing more faith in things going wrong than in his ability to handle whatever my concern happened to be.
My son’s reminder to have faith has been a positive reminder that has helped me to trust him more and communicate better. As I reflect back on these moments, I find myself understanding his technique of using “No faith!” as a way to remind me that he needs nothing but my trust in order for him to be successful.
I placed my trust in the wrong place. Instead of trusting him, I had more trust bets being placed against him.
You may have experienced times when you have more faith in things going wrong than in things going right. Your spouse may have said “You don’t trust me!”
At those times, they are right. You aren’t trusting them in the way they need you to. Whatever trust you have is in the wrong place.
If I had placed my trust in my son, our communication would have been different. We could have talked through whatever issue was at hand and found an agreement or compromise rather than me shutting down the conversation because of a lack of faith in him.
Such misplaced trust leads to fear. That in itself is a problem since fear creates more fear. It spreads into every part of your life. It can get so bad that you are terrified of things that only exist in your imagination. You need someone who reminds you that they need your trust. They need you to have faith in them.
Although it’s scary having faith in them, it’s less scary than wrestling with the imaginary monsters and outcomes that fear brings with it.
Maybe, you don’t know how to trust or don’t fully understand it. If that’s the case, the video “How Can I Trust You Again?” gives you that missing understanding. You’ll know what all the pieces of trust are, how they work together and how they can be rebuilt after being damaged.
Keeping It Real,
Jeff
