Do You Believe There is Good in the World?

It is easy in this world to give up on humanity. We must seek and strive to find it everywhere we go. God was just about to give up on the Hebrews when Moses prayed on their behalf. God softened his stance and did not destroy them after all. Exodus 32:11-14 This was all because just one man had faith in the promises of God. That even though they had behaved badly Moses reminded God of his own promise: to “multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven. Moses knew the Hebrews were a faithless lot of humans that were cursed with the fall from God but he knew that God, himself, was faithful in his promises. God nor Moses made any excuses for the bad behavior but went back to the source of all life, God and his promises.

The dark side wants us to give up and not have faith that God is with us. The dark side wants us to loose love for each other and all human kind. But God loved us so much that he sent his sone Jesus to be sacrificed so that we could be with him again, reconciled to him. Giving up on humanity is easy to do but we are not called to what is easy. We are called to love one another. We can’t love one another if we have no faith in them.

Since we lost all our personal belonging when our house burned two years ago, I have been buying pictures for our walls in our new home. One day I ran across a picture that was turquois and white that would match the hall bathroom upstairs. The picture reads “Believe there is good in the world. Some letters are white with black edges and some are turquoise with black edges. I hung it up and every morning I would go to the bathroom and see that sign. For a time over the last two years, I have gone into a dark place where I wondered if there was good in the world. For my own personal mental health, I decided I needed to believe it. After all, my husband was good. For him alone I should not condemn the world even if it were in my power. If there is one man there have to be two men and a woman or two and then you have a village of good.

I had that sign hanging in my bathroom for a few months. I pondered it every day and I began to believe again that good was in the world. Afterall, I used logic. When God created everything in the first place, he said it was good. Just because the dark side brought in evil, it did not erase what was good. If there is evil there must be good.

Then it happened. Much to my astonishment and perhaps your disbelief. I am not exaggerating or writing fictions here. Although I love writing fiction. Here I write the truth. One morning I went into my bathroom and I saw the sign. I said “Yes, I believe there is good in the world.” My eyes shifted and focused and I suddenly saw that the turquoise letters alone read “Be the Good”. “Be the Good” was inside “Believe there is good in the world”. After I overcame my astonishment for not having seen this all this time” Being the Good” makes the greater statement true.

If I loved God and sought goodness and truth then there was good in the world. If there is one or two there are tens and 20s and thousands and so on.

This week the weather began to warm up indicating that summer is coming. My husband had been working on a side by side (All Terrain Vehicle) to use for working around our almost seven acres of property. But the thing just wouldn’t be fixed. He is no longer a spring chicken so we decided to get someone else to fix it.

We took it down to a mechanic shop that told us over the phone that they had time to fix it and to bring it on down. We arrived at big warehouse packed full of motorcycles and vehicles. I wondered around and didn’t get the feeling that they were working on them. It seemed more like a temporary storage rather than a working garage. I didn’t see machines for diagnostics. Everything was disorderly. As soon as they started to speak, they began gas-lighting us. They acted like they had not spoken to us at all. The two men, one speaking with a cigarette wagging from his mouth, began to lie. I won’t go into the details of their despicable attempted treachery. Suffice it to say that it reeked of a scam and we decided to take our chances on fixing it ourselves. 

I immediately, threw all the mechanics out with the bath water as crooked and dishonest and untrustworthy, etc and so on.

However, my husband decided to through the net on the other side of the boat, metaphorically speaking. The very next day we met an entirely different mechanic. He offered to trade us our unworking ATV for his working one plus some cash. He immediately trusted us. He gave us his home address right away and his shop address. Everything he said was true. He never told us a lie. The business transactions went flawlessly. He looked us in the eye, treated us with respect and shook both our hands to seal the deal. But the man said that if we changed our minds once we saw the ATV he would give us our money back. We delivered the unworking ATV to his house and picked up our new one. He trusted us to go to his house.

 I was still reeling from the experience from the day before and hadn’t wanted to give him the money but my husband reminded me that those guys from yesterday were not this guy. This guy was different. He never forgets there is good in the world. Even though I was still livid from the guys they day before I made a decision to trust. I decided to trust first myself that if the situation went south and we lost our money or got scammed in some other way I would not impose blame and accusation on my self. I trusted myself maybe for the first time not to spiral into a beating up myself party of regret, remorse and self loathing.

Secondly, I decided to trust my husband. I was after all under his covering from God’s point of view. I gave him honor by respecting his judgement. Thirdly I trusted a stranger who displayed trustworthy characteristic rather than unfairly piling him in with the proven untrustworthy people. Wouldn’t you just hate it if everyone thought you were a crook just because you looked like or had the same profession as some crook you saw on the news? I know I would. Then, most importantly I decided to trust God. Afterall he didn’t bring me through this life this far just to lead me into a trap now.

Why is this so important to learn to trust?  Why is it important to trust? Because faith without works is dead. James 2:14-26 Trust is the first step to faith. It is an actual physical step showing the evidence of faith. It is important for our mental health to know that there are trustworthy people on this Earth. Most importantly we need to trust ourselves. I made that decision to trust that man, to trust my husband and most importantly to trust myself. I decided that no matter what happened in this business deal I was going to be accountable for my decision, my reaction, and my consequences.

I have been swindled in my life as I am sure most everyone has. But the times that I didn’t get swindled far, far overwhelms those bad experiences. We as women, and especially as Southerners, get stuck in a habit of mistrust, suspicion, being the victim. I’m not saying be victim. Definitely, be aware and follow your gut instinct. But let’s be willing to trust others and especially be willing to trust ourselves.

I contemplated why trusting was so hard for me. I came to the conclusion that it wasn’t the fear of being scammed or cheated or swindled. Trust myself means that I will not beat myself up over the decision of it goes South. Make the decision, own it, accept it live with it. I am excited to learn that living in a world were there is good and being the good is being good to myself and trusting myself.

I challenge you to trust yourself today. Do what you say you are going to do for yourself today and build your own trust. You will be glad you did.