The Lord loves you. But does He trust you? We often speak of trusting the Lord, and that is a vital aspect of faith. But I believe we speak far too little of the flip side of the coin: Earning the Lord’s Trust. We rarely speak of this aspect of the Gospel, but it is one of the most important lessons of discipleship. We know that God loves everyone, but His trust has to be earned. David O. McKay taught this lesson to a young missionary by the name of James E. Faust “It is better to be trusted than to be loved.” (GC: Apr. 1999) Think about this quote, it teaches that whereas all are loved, not all are trusted. And that it is better to be in the latter group.
My mission President shared this quote with me while I was seeing in New England. He taught us the vital importance of earning the Lord’s trust as we were His missionaries, seeking His errands. How could we expect success if we were not trusted by the Lord? The root of being trusted by the Lord is having integrity. Elder Richard J. Maynes taught that it is “through the integrity of our hearts, [that we] earn the trust of the Lord” (GC: Oct. 2017 “Earning the Trust of the Lord and Your Family“)
I remember being a missionary and grappling to understand this concept of being trusted by the Lord and earning His trust when I watched President Monson’s Biography “On the Lord’s Errand (Click HERE to watch it)”. It was like taking a masterclass on earning the Lord’s trust. It details his experience of being trusted with a prompting, failing to act on it because of rationalization, and then ultimately seeing the consequences. As a result, he committed to follow every prompting. The summarizing quote of the video was when Thomas S. Monson declared: “The sweetest experience I know in life is to feel a prompting and act upon it and later find out that it was the fulfillment of someone’s prayer or someone’s need. And I always want the Lord to know that if He needs an errand run, Tom Monson will run that errand for Him”
How Do We Earn The Lord’s Trust?
Earning the Lord’s trust starts with keeping your covenants. Elder Richard J. Maynes taught “Trust is a blessing based on obedience to God’s laws. Earning the Lord’s trust comes as a result of being true to the covenants we have made in the waters of baptism and in the holy temple. When we keep our promises to the Lord, His trust in us grows.”
If you are faithfully keeping your covenants, and seek to build greater trust from the Lord, then do as President Monson did: commit to follow every prompting and ask the Lord for an errand! He will give you an opportunity, an errand, so that you can prove your integrity, and your commitment to follow the Holy Ghost. Earning the Lord’s trust is just that simple! It does not matter how much or how little trust you’ve earned, you can start building more today by requesting from the Lord an errand and then following the prompting(s) that ensue. The Lord’s trust is earned one kept commandment at a time, one kept covenant at a time, and one followed prompting at a time.
Why We Should Want To Be Trusted
Being trusted is not merely a matter of running errands for the Lord, it is a matter of exaltation. If the Lord does not trust us, we will not obtain exaltation. Therefore, the goal of every member of the Church should be to be trusted by the Lord. After all, this is the main requirement to receive one’s calling and election: to be proven “faithful at all hazards.” Marion G. Romney taught this in the Oct. 1974 General Conference, “Our individual exaltation depends upon our proving to the Lord that we will at all hazards and under all circumstances faithfully discharge the trust he has placed in us.”
This was taught by Joseph Smith: “When the Lord has thoroughly proved him, and finds that the man is determined to serve Him at all hazards, then the man will find his calling and his election made sure” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 150. as in GC: Apr. 1977)
Trust reaches its apex when one has their calling and election made sure. When as Elder Bruce R. McConkie explained, we have our “day of judgment advanced” because we’ve been proven faithful. When His voice is heard: “Ye shall obtain.” That is the ultimate result of trust, being assured in this life of our exaltation in the next life. (For more on the topic of making your calling and election sure, see 13+ Quotes From General Authorities on the Nature of Making Your Calling and Election Sure.)
Trust and Repentance
Just as love and trust are often incorrectly conflated, so too are trust and forgiveness in repentance. Nearly everything that is part of the “repentance process” has almost nothing to do with forgiveness, but rather earning back the Lord’s trust. The scriptures are clear, to be forgiven of sin, we must “confess them and forsake them.” (D&C 58:43) But more than just being clear on the conditions of being forgiven of our sins, we have stories like that of Alma the Younger who testified that in the moment he “did cry out unto the Lord Jesus Christ for mercy, did I receive a remission of my sins.” (Alma 38:8)
If forgiveness of sin is merely a matter of truly confessing and forsaking our sins and accepting Jesus’ atoning grace, then why do we need to meet with bishops? Why do we sometimes have restrictions put in place for partaking of the sacrament? TRUST! Whereas forgiveness is quick, trust takes time to rebuild. When a covenant is broken, we violate the Lord’s trust. That is when we meet with the bishop and he, as the Lord’s authorized representative, can outline the plan to earn back the Lord’s Trust and renew our covenants. This often requires we prove our trustworthiness through things like restitution and showing a pattern of obedience before the Bishop, as the Lord’s representative, will authorize us to renew the contract with the Lord that are our covenants.
Everything a Bishop does to help someone “repent” is not to help them gain forgiveness of their sins, but rather to help them earn back the trust of the Lord so that they can then renew their covenants and regain the companionship of the Holy Ghost.
A Note On Measuring The Lord’s Trust in Us.
There are a lot of tropes regarding the Lord trusting us. People say things like “The Lord has trusted you with a baby.” Or “you’ve got a trial, it’s a sign the Lord trusts you.” For just two examples. I hate these tropes!! Not only are they not true, but they also set up the false inverse “If I can’t have a baby, it’s because the Lord does not trust me.” Are those who get pregnant out of wedlock more trustworthy than an infertile covenant-keeping saint? No! These tropes are just garbage, please don’t use them.
So how does someone measure the degree of trust the Lord has in us? You can’t really. It is between you and the Lord. I have found the best way to measure my trust with the Lord is to ask myself, “When was the last time I ran an errand for Him? When was the last time I received a prompting and acted on it?” If I do not like the answer to that question, then I know I am unsatisfied with the degree of trust the Lord has in me.
Therefore What?
Now that you understand the importance of earning the Lord’s trust, both in building the kingdom here and now, as well as working towards your calling and election; I want to invite you to do as I have done, and as I repeatedly do. Get down on your knees and ask the Lord for an errand. Ask Him to give you an opportunity, a prompting, to help someone THIS WEEK! Then get off your knees with the resolve to follow every prompting no matter how crazy it may sound. I can and do testify from personal experience that following crazy promptings such as “Go to Halifax Nova Scotia” when you don’t even have a passport can be the beginning of a miracle story. (For that story see “How I Ended Up Driving 1,000 Miles to Answer Someone Else’s Prayer“)
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