can anyone be trusted?

Who can we trust?

I've had little time lately to keep up on my bloglife. Well here am I for my glorious return.

Over the past week I’ve dealt with a significant blow in my life. The man who most greatly influenced and poured into my life in jr. high and high school was recently fired from his pastoral position and kicked out of the church.

I grew up in a church where the word saved and the concept of worship was absent. In jr. high I started attending the church where this man (the one who most influenced me) was the Youth Pastor. Under his guidance I discovered my passion for ministry (youth in particular) and it was from him I learned all the things that became so foundational in my life. It was from him I learned about Jesus and became a follower of Christ. I loved being around him and I would have laughed at you if you would have tried to convince me that he was deceptive and malicious. He was never reluctant to take someone in need into his home. When he became the senior pastor of his church the church tripled in attendance and came out of a financial crisis all before his sixth month as pastor.

Not only did this man recently plead guilty of fraud (he also owned a local retail store) he has apparently admitted to sharing sexual relationships with multiple girls in the youth group. These are teenage girls with a married middle aged man.

I’m not usually one to share my problems on my blogs but this circumstance brings a lot of confusion into my life. Here is a man, who I would have trusted with my life, deceiving and taking advantage of people. So who can I trust? Who can we trust? Is there anyone who can be trusted?

I am constantly reminded that life is hard. I understand people make mistakes but I hope you’ll understand that this has affected many people, including myself, much more than a simple mistake of petty lie. Why do people do things like this? I was reminded by my mom of Matthew 15 “you honor me with your lips but your heart is far from me” a quote from Jesus from the book of Isaiah. I’m lead to ask if maybe I was wrong on my last two posts and people are bad.

I can say to my fellow seekers, that when someone does something good it’s good and when someone does something bad it’s bad, good is of God bad is not. This is how I’ve desperately tried and am slowly failing to respond to this abandonment: do not allow the God of someone’s lips to be represented by the atrocities of someone’s actions.

God forgive him and have mercy. His sin has found him out. May his deed lead none astray but, God, bring good out of this bad just as you have done so eloquently throughout history.

Friends, pray for healing and restoration in the life of the church and I humbly request that you pray for me as I make sense of this confusing time.