Constructive Conflict: Trust Versus Suspicion

Pastor Burcham’s Sermon

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Several years ago, when I had an opportunity to be in London for one day, I took the underground railroad station around the city and there’s something that, as soon as you walk into the station, you’re confronted with immediately and that is there are signs everywhere that say, “Mind the Gap.” It’s all over the walls. It’s on banners that are hanging down. People had it on their t-shirts. “Mind the Gap.” I said, “What is this weird British thing about Mind the Gap?” And then I went to get on the train and I began to understand because there, on the platform, right where the doors open up, was another big sign that said, “Mind the Gap.” And when the doors opened up, this guy with a British accent said, “Mind the Gap.” Oh, it’s the gap between the platform and the train and they want you to be mindful of that gap because it’s a dangerous place. If you get your heel caught in it, if you have a small child with you, their leg could actually fit in-between the platform and the train so, therefore, for safety’s sake, everywhere it’s “Mind the Gap.”

There is an equally dangerous gap in every relationship that you have, and we need to mind that gap. It is the unexplainable gaps between what you expect of an individual and what that individual actually does. You see, you have to mind the gap when they say they’re going to be there at 3:00 and you expect them to be there at 3:00 but, unexplainably, they don’t show up until 3:30. You see, it’s the unexplainable gap when your partner says, “I’ll have my part of the presentation on your desk Monday morning 6:00 a.m.” and it’s Wednesday afternoon one hour before the presentation and it finally hits your in-box. There’s an unexplainable gap between what you expected and what you received. 

You see, it’s your spouse who says, “I’ve put in a lot of hours lately, Honey. I’m going to take a day off next week.” And next week comes and goes and there’s no mention of it. There’s an unexplainable gap between what you expect and what you receive. What you fill the gap with determines whether you have strong, healthy relationships or poisonous relationships because you can either fill the gap with trust or you can fill the gap with suspicion. You fill the gap with trust when you say, “There must be a pretty good reason of why he’s running late.” You fill it with suspicion when you say, “That kid is so irresponsible. He’s probably out hanging with his friends and doesn’t care two cents about being on time.” You can fill it with trust by saying, “Wow, he must have gotten hit with a lot of work and he just simply can’t get away.” Or you fill it with suspicion, “You know, he just doesn’t want to spend time with me. That’s all there is to it.” What you fill the gap with is either poisonous to the relationship or it builds it up.

As we’re concluding our series of messages on conflict and confrontation, I want to give you what I consider a very important tool of how to fill that gap with trust because of the impact it can have on your relationships, whether it’s in the home between spouses or between you and your kids or it’s at work with coworkers or even if it’s just your neighbors, if you can come together and if you can make a commitment to one another that we’re not going to fill these gaps with suspicion but we’re going to fill them with trust, it has an unbelievable impact on your relationship.

But it’s a lot harder than it sounds. It’s a lot harder than it sounds to fill the gap with trust. It is much, much easier for us to fill the gaps with suspicion. And there are two really good reasons for that. One is some of us are just suspicious by nature. That’s just how we are. We always figure somebody has to have an angle on this. There must be a hidden agenda. “They’re not telling us the whole story, I’m positive of that.” “The salesman’s trying to pull a fast one on me. He’s trying to sell me something that I don’t need.” “The newspaper is slanted. They have their own agenda.” Some of us by nature are just suspicious. In fact, I contemplated this week, I wonder how many of you, when we announced that we were going to do a series of messages on conflict, thought to yourself, “Hum, I wonder what’s going on at church? Is something happening with the staff or leadership that we have to have a whole series of messages on conflict?” We’re just suspicious by nature.

The second one kind of feeds into that, and that is we’re suspicious because of our experience. We’ve been burned too many times, right? “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, three times, four times, five times, well, shame on me. And I’m not going to be fooled again.” You see, you’ve been duped one too many times. Somebody has pulled a fast one on you just one too many times so you say, “I’m not going to do that anymore.” So you’re suspicious of everything.

Or maybe it’s just for certain individuals because of your experience with an individual. So you look at your son or daughter and say, “You know what, you were two weeks overdue, which means you were late. You were late to Kindergarten your first day of school. You were late to confirmation. You were late to your wedding, and you’re going to be late to your funeral, Son.” “And so my experience says that you’re going to be late and I’m not going to expect you to be here on time.” Our experience then creates this suspicion to fill the gap.

The problem is suspicion poisons relationships. When we fill those gaps with suspicion, that means we fill our heads with all kinds of speculation and all kinds of ungrounded thoughts of why somebody didn’t deliver what we expected they would deliver. It builds up resentment in our heart, anger, frustration. It’s poisonous to relationships when we fill the gap with suspicion.

Imagine the impact if, in your relationships, you could fill the gap with trust. Maybe you want to start with you and your spouse or you and your kids or just the whole family because it takes both parties involved. This isn’t just a one-way thing. But when both parties can come together and say, “You know what, we want a strong, healthy relationship and that means we know there are going to be gaps because, living this side of heaven, it will happen. Somebody’s going to promise something and they’re not going to deliver and there’s going to be this unexplainable gap that’s in there. If we can make a pact with one another, we’re going to fill that gap with trust.”

It takes two things. First of all, it calls upon you to trust and it calls upon you to be trustworthy. In fact, it calls upon everybody involved to say, “I’m going to trust, but also I’m going to be worthy of that trust.” There are three commitments you have to make for each one of those. First of all, if you’re going to say, “I trust you,” that means “I’m going to make three commitments to you.” The first one is this: I will make a conscious choice to fill the gap with trust. If you tell me you’re going to be here at 3:00, I’ll believe you. If you tell me the report’s going to be on my desk at 6 a.m. Monday morning, I believe you. I’m not going to side guess it. I’m not going to say, “Um, I’m not sure. You haven’t done that before. I’m going to believe you because I’m going to say that I trust what you’re saying. And when the gap occurs and you don’t deliver like you said you were going to deliver, I’m still not going to fill it with suspicion. I’m going to put the best construction possible on it. I’m going to fill it with trust that says, “You know, something must have come up. There must be a reasonable explanation. I’m not going to jump to any conclusions about why it’s not here. So the number one promise is I’m going to trust you.”

Number two is “I’m going to defend you. That means when somebody else tries to interject suspicion into this, I’m going to defend you to that other person.” So when your coworker comes up to you and says, “You know I was just listening. There is no way he is going to get you that report by Monday at 6. He has burned you three other times. Are you really so dumb to believe he’s going to come through this time? Don’t you see what he’s doing? He’s going to walk in at the last minute. You will look a fool. He’ll look like a hero to the boss. The whole office sees it. Why can’t you?” I will defend you. I will defend you. If I’m going to trust you, I’m not going to listen to that. I’m not going to triangulate. I’m not going to bring other people involved. I’ll defend you that I trust you.

And the third one may be the most important because it certainly is the most difficult and that is when experience erodes my trust, I’m going to talk to you first and I’m going to do it sooner rather than later. When my experience shows me that, all of a sudden, my trust level is not there because, “For the last three times, Son, you said you’d be here at a certain time and you haven’t arrived at a certain time. You and I need to talk.” “I need to tell you. You worked on two projects with me and you haven’t delivered it on time, both times. We need to talk.” “Honey, you said a month ago you’re going to take a day off and spend it with me and we haven’t spoken a word about it since. We need to talk.” This is so difficult for us because it calls for confrontation on our part but healthy confrontation, thus, a series of messages by my church on conflict and conflict resolution.

But it’s biblical. Jesus said in the gospel lesson for today. He says, “If you’re at the altar and you have something against somebody,” what does He say? “Go and be reconciled to that person.” When? He said, “Come to terms quickly.” The longer you brood about it, the longer you stew about it, the longer you let it fester, the more it eats at the relationship. Because the fact of the matter is, there will be times when people will have repetitive behavior. We all know people who are late consistently. We all know people who don’t deliver what they’ve promised to deliver but have you talked to them? Have you had that godly confrontation with them?

I cannot tell you the amount of stories I’ve heard from couples and individuals who are caught completely off guard because they had no clue they were letting the other person down. And meanwhile, this person is stewing and brooding and filling that gap with suspicion, “You know, she just does that to tick me off, I know it.” “I know he’s not going to take the time off. He loves that work more than he loves me.” And you just keep filling it with suspicion until finally it blows up.

“When my experience erodes the trust, I’m going to talk to you and I’m going to talk to you first. I’m not going to talk to anybody else. And I’m going to do it sooner rather than later so we can address the situation, have some sort of reconciliation go on.” That’s what it means when you trust another individual. “I’m going to trust you, which means I’m only going to deal with you, not with somebody else.”

But that’s only half the equation. You only trust when the person is worthy of trust. And if you want the other people to fulfill the gap with trust, then you yourself have to be trustworthy and you have to be worthy of that trust. So you both have to commit to not only trusting the other individual but being worthy of trust yourself. And there are three things that you need to do there if you’re going to be a trustworthy individual.

The first one is do what you say you’re going to do. This is not rocket science. This is pretty baseline stuff, elementary, right? Do what you say that you’re going to do. “I’m going to be there by 3:00.” Arrive at 2:55. “The report will be on your desk Monday morning 6:00 a.m.”  5:55 it hit’s the in-box. “I’m going to take some time off and spend it with you.” “Honey, I have Friday off. It’s on the schedule. I’m all yours for that day.” You do what you say that you’re going to do. That shows you to be a trustworthy individual.

Alright, now there’s reality. We live this side of heaven and stuff happens. And stuff happens means that we can’t always deliver. So the second commitment is no surprises. I don’t know about you, I don’t like surprises, especially when I’m anticipating and expecting something. No surprises says, “If I’m not able to fulfill my commitment, if I’m not able to do what you expect me to do, the first person you will hear from is me because I’m going to tell you, if possible, before you’re even let down.” So the teenager is out and it’s 2:30 and he’s an hour away and he’s supposed to be home at 3:00. And he calls up and says, “Listen, I messed up. I’m just hanging with my friends, lost track of time. There is no way, unless you want me to go far faster than you ever imagined, that I’m going to be there by 3:00.” You know what that communicates to Mom and Dad? He’s trustworthy because he’s owning up to it first. He’s stepping out and saying, “I can’t fulfill the commitment that I made you.” So that’s what it means to be a trustworthy person is no surprises. “I’m going to let you know before anyone else knows.”

The third thing is take responsibility. There will be those times when stuff happens and you can’t get to the person ahead of time. It just happens. Then take responsibility. When somebody confronts you in a godly way and says, “You know what? My experience has eroded my trust in you. You have let me down on these three occasions, and I’m starting to wonder and I’m having trouble trusting you.” It means that you take responsibility and, in all honesty, you say, “You’re right. You’re right, I did it. I promised something to you. You had every right to expect it from me and I didn’t deliver.” And that, my friends, opens up the door for reconciliation. It opens up the door for forgiveness to take place. It opens up the door for you to set a plan for the future. It doesn’t mean it will never happen again, but what it means is you’re a trustworthy person. It means that if I can come to you and I can say, “You know what? This isn’t adding up,” if you greet me with anger, if you greet me with all kinds of excuses, if you greet me with all kinds of reasons of why it happened, I’ll probably never come to you again. But if open yourself up and you freely take the hit and take on the responsibility, that means the next time it happens, that person will come to you again because they trust you. They know you have a solid relationship with them where you can work these things out.

Could you imagine your relationships, your spouse, your kids, your friends, coworkers, if you could huddle together this afternoon and say, “You know what? This has happened before. There are these unexplainable gaps in what I expect and what I actually receive. Can we fill those gaps with trust? Can we make a commitment to one another that we will trust each other?” But we also have to make the commitment that we ourselves will be trustworthy. Do you see how that fosters a loving and growing relationship?

Case in point, our relationship with God. Have you ever considered the fact that God fills the gap with trust? Because God has certain expectations of us, correct? And how often do we fail to meet those expectations? What He expects us to do often times is far, far different than what we do. And yet, God fills the gap with trust. What I mean by that is God is not sitting on His throne in heaven going, “Take a look at this, boys. He messed up yesterday. He messed up last week. You know he’s going to mess up tomorrow. Let’s just watch and see. I know he is.” God doesn’t do that.

What does He say in 1 Corinthians? He says, “Love keeps no record of wrongs.” God is love. God doesn’t keep a record of wrongs. He always trusts. He always hopes. Scripture tells us that God chooses not to remember our sins anymore. That means, every single day, we start out fresh. In fact, every single moment of every day, we start out fresh, as God forgives our sins and He fills the gap, even though we don’t deserve it, He fills the gap with trust, not with suspicion. Trustworthy? Can you think of anyone more trustworthy than God? He has done everything that He said He’s going to do. At the beginning of time, when mankind’s relationship was broken with Him, God promised. God promised to restore that relationship. He promised to deliver a Messiah. And boy, did He deliver on that. He sent His very own Son so that Jesus walked this earth and then He bled and died for you, my friends, so He could wash away all the sins. He could wash away all the times when you didn’t do what you were supposed to do, so you can start out clean and fresh. God is trustworthy, and that means we can have a strong and vibrant relationship with Him.

That’s what it means to have God loving us, and that’s why God says as He’s loved us, we’re to love one another. That means in our relationships, when these gaps occur, can you imagine the impact if we filled the gap with trust instead of suspicion? Mind the gap. Amen.

Copyright 2009 Gloria Dei Lutheran Church