Love and trust and confidence

I was talking to my counselor the other day about how I just feel so lost. I said what little confidence I did have was just sucked out of me. My wife and I both feel so betrayed, and we don't know what to do.

He said self-confidence is unnecessary. The Bible doesn't talk about having confidence in ourselves; but only in God. We don't need to feel confident or competent or anything of the sort. God can use us regardless. That was just what I needed to hear: 'We don't need self-confidence; we need God-confidence.' At least I do...

Then we talked about trust. I said I was having a hard time trusting people again. He kind of laughed and was like, "You think you're actually SUPPOSED to trust people?!" He says, "I don't trust anybody... but God." He said it is a mistake to think we can trust people. In fact, we should consider that people are absolutely going to betray us. Then, when they don't, it's a plus. And when they do, that's just how it goes.

He went on that love and trust work in opposite ways. Love only has value when it is given away. When I give love to someone, then they get more, and I get more too. If I withhold love from someone, then we both lose love.

Trust, on the other hand, works in a very economical way. It's like a bank account. If you do something to win my trust, you have some credit. So then when you do something like, say, forget to tell me something... the amount in your 'trust' account goes down. It doesn't mean I won't still love you (or like, depending on the nature of the relationship), but the amount I can trust you goes down. If you do something really bad, then you may empty your account and there is no longer any trust available for you. It's possible that it may be re-earned, but not necessarily. The inverse works too.

So, in a nutshell, we should not expect people to be trustworthy. That doesn't mean we shouldn't care for them (or love them) though.

He got his money's worth that day. Just what I need a counselor for: to tell me what I NEED to hear, not necessarily what I want to hear.