First, build up trust with customers,then...

A well known business maxin is: "To build up business sales, first build up trust with customers."  As any psychologist will tell you, most conflict between people arises from a lack of trust. If you don’t trust the motives of the person you are dealing with, you won’t believe anything they say, even if they are telling the truth. In his book, "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team", Patrick Lencioni discusses the fact that trust is only possible when people have personal knowledge of each other, not simply a good working relationship. Knowing something personal about someone changes the working dynamic in ways that prompt and accurate service can’t.

It seems that trusting someone else... and more so, to surrender to that person implicitly ..... especially in a relationship of close friendship or, better still marriage...are the most difficult concepts for today's society to accept. While trust may not be so difficult for many to accept it is surrender that seems to be an aspect of our characters which we are not born with. To trust and surrender everyday is not easy or natural. We see the fragility of our lives in these two words – one builds for years only to see everything destroyed in a second; one is patient with a situation for many years but in a second one explodes into anger and loses all one had been working for.  The other day I listened to a talk by Rev. Dr Rene Camilleri on this topic.  Fr Camilleri said that we often seem to create a prison around us as a protection.  He gave a specific example of this prison:  “I am offended because I feel I deserve better.  I remain tied to my own prison because I am the centre of my life.  Trust can be the virtue that frees us from the cell.  When my heart becomes a sacred space. We need to shift the centre of gravity of our selves to God, but not in a sense of slavery but in a sense of adoration. The vacuum of having God at the centre will lead us to discover ourselves and our direction”.

C.S. Lewis (right) wrote “I’m not born to be free.  I was born to adore and obey.”  Today’s culture refuses this concept.  As long as freedom remains the centre of our beings then freedom is what directs us.  We need to remove our centre of gravity to allow our God to function in it by filling it Himself. Otherwise we will be the centre of gravity of our lives.

Trust was an element of fear. So before we are able to trust we usually want and need to check things out. Trust and surrender mean that we cannot quantify it beforehand as we would normally do. Even at simple friendship levels, if we expect a reaction from our friend/s then we are probably not trusting them and only really trusting ourselves. The more we fear the less we can trust and surrender.

According to St Thomas Aquinas, the fear of God (i.e. the Holy Spirit) will lead us to a filial trust with God.  Thomas the Apostle is known to have disbelieved the story of Jesus’ resurrection. The importance of this is that Thomas found it difficult to believe because he wasn’t there.  When he was there, he could believe and put Jesus at the real centre of his life and his community.

Fr Rene concluded saying that to train oneself to trust and surrender more, one needs to allow the community to develop them. It is the Spirit of God that builds us into a community. It is the “school” where we learn.  In reality, Christianity is an experience that becomes a message.