The Power of Trust, Faithfulness, and Love in Building Strong Relationships

In the timeless wisdom of Proverbs 3:3-6, we find a profound blueprint for building strong, enduring relationships:

“Let love and faithfulness never leave you;
Bind them around your neck,
Write them on the tablet of your heart.
Then you will find favor in the sight of God and man.”

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart,
And lean not on your own understanding;
In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He will make your paths straight.”

These verses beautifully intertwine the virtues of love, faithfulness, and trust, revealing how they work together to create bonds that endure over time.

To me, these verses speak of the importance of being a person who embodies love and faithfulness—qualities that should permeate the very core of our being, symbolized by the heart. Faithfulness should be evident in both our words and actions. It encompasses being sincere, competent, reliable, credible, empathetic, and acting with integrity. Love, the most powerful bond in relationships, binds all these strands together in our hearts, holding them in place.

Trust, however, is the essential glue that secures these relationships, whether at home, at work or wherever you find yourself in community. In our relationships, trust allows us to be vulnerable, to believe in the goodness of others, and to depend on them with confidence. When trust is intertwined with love and faithfulness, it creates a powerful dynamic. Love motivates us to act with care, faithfulness keeps us true to our word, and trust fosters belief in the integrity of others. Together, these virtues form a bond that is not easily broken—a relationship where each person feels secure and valued.

However, if we fail to be faithful in our actions, each strand of this bond begins to weaken, fiber by fiber. Without acts of love to reinforce the fragile areas, the day may come when the final strand breaks, leaving nothing left to hold onto.  Trust is irreparably broken.

Holy Cross Orthodox Church - Linthicum, Maryland

Yet, Proverbs reminds us of one unshakeable truth: We can always put our full trust in the Lord. Why? Because:

• His truth is sincere.

• His Spirit is competent.

• His promises are reliable.

• His word is credible.

• His love is empathetic.

• His life—His incarnation, ministry, resurrection, and ongoing communion with us—demonstrates His perfect integrity.

The wisdom of Proverbs 3:3-6 is a powerful reminder that love, faithfulness, and trust are not merely abstract virtues but practical tools for building strong, enduring relationships. When we bind these qualities to our lives, we create bonds that are resilient, filled with grace, and pleasing in the sight of both God and man.

In a world where relationships can often feel fragile, let us strive to inscribe love and faithfulness on the tablets of our hearts, trusting in the Lord to guide our paths and strengthen the bonds we share with others.

Forgiveness and the FeedForward Mindset

The word forgiveness is not one we hear a lot in business.  I believe being forgiving is an essential character trait of a leader.  Working with other people is fraught with mistakes, unkind words spoken, misunderstandings and one-ups-man-ship.  As a leader we need to learn how to right these wrongs so that we can move on and continue to work well with others.

Christianity teaches a radical approach to forgiveness.  The teaching is beautifully depicted in the Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15: 11-31)

A young man insisted his father give him his inheritance now.  He took the money and ran literally.  After squandering his inheritance and finding himself wallowing in the mud with the pigs, he said to himself, the hired men at my father’s house are better treated than this.  I shall return and ask to be a hired man.

What did the father do?  Did he give the son a lecture?  Did he tell him he can’t come back?  Parents, what would you have done?  I know I would have been so angry that a long lecture and great acts of payback would have been required.  I certainly would have acted more like the older brother who became angry and refused to join the celebration.

Instead, while the son was a long way off, the father ran to him, threw his arms around him, kissed and celebrated, with a gift of a ring and a fatted calf, his lost son’s return.

The Power of this Approach

Here’s what so revolutionary.  When two people are at odds with each other, regardless of who is at fault, it is as if they have turned their backs on each other.  What Christianity teaches is that the hurt party needs to turn back around and be ready to forgive, with their arms outstretched (a long way off), so that when the aggrieving party turns around to ask for forgiveness (repents), they see that it is already being offered!

Here’s the power in this approach to forgiveness from the prodigal son perspective.  In the last few years I have had two very sorrowful experiences where I, the prodigal son turned around to ask forgiveness and was not greeted by a someone that had already forgiven me.  In both cases, it was not my intention to hurt the other person and I was actually surprised that what I did had been perceived as hurtful.  But alas, that is not the point, I did hurt the person.  When I asked what I could do to repair the hurt I caused, one person said, “I don’t think there is anything you can do to repair this.”  The other person said, “It sounds like you want to just sweep this under the rug, and I can’t tolerate that.”

When I turned around to ask for forgiveness, it was as if the person I offended had their back towards me and had no intention of ever turning around.  How then can we ever move forward to repair the hurt in the relationship?

Reconciliation vs. Retribution

I know in both cases that asking for forgiveness was only the first step in my repentance.  I know that as I am given forgiveness, I must offer reconciliation - acts of love I must do to repair the trust I had damaged.  I suspect the prodigal son had a lot of work ahead of him, but the work began with a celebration of the fact that the son that I thought was dead, is alive.  The relationship that I thought was broken, will be repaired.

Let’s not confuse reconciliation with retribution.  Retribution is a pay-back; an eye for an eye.  Reconciliation is an act of love for another.  An act that wants to repair what was damaged. And here’s where our FeedForward skills come in.  Having a conversation with the person not only about forgiving, but also how we might move forward.  

“...here also forgiving does not mean excusing. Many people seem to think it does. They think that if you ask them to forgive someone who has cheated or bullied them you are trying to make out that there was really no cheating or bullying. But if that were so, there would be nothing to forgive. (This doesn’t mean that you must necessarily believe his next promise. It does mean that you must make every effort to kill every taste of resentment in your own heart - every wish to humiliate or hurt him or to pay him out.)”

— C.S. Lewis

Our Signature Strengths are a gift from God

The Prophet Daniel

As Joyful Leaders we know that our Signature Strengths are a gift from God.  Prophet Daniel’s life in Babylon demonstrates that as we use our gifts to glorify God, other’s will know from whom we get our true strength.

Listen to what King Nebuchadnezzar said about Daniel: “But, you Daniel, are able, because the Spirit of the Holy God is in you.”  Daniel 4:18. Several years later, Nebuchadnezzar’s son, King Belshazzar said: “I have heard of you, that the Spirit of God is in you, and vigilance, understanding and an excellent wisdom are found in you.”  Daniel 5:14. Kings Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar knew where Daniel’s gifts came from.

Daniel’s excellence reflected the presence of God within him. And as Daniel’s life demonstrated,  the ultimate best self is to become a living icon of the light of Christ within.

Trustworthiness - Who do you Trust?

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.  In all your ways, acknowledge Him and he will make your path straight.  Proverbs 3:5-6

In the King James Version of the Bible, the word trust appears 188 times.  Over a third of those occurrences (68) are in the book of Psalms.  What was it about David’s life that he becomes an icon of what it means to trust in the Lord?  And become the most beloved and trustworthy King of Israel.

I believe King David role models for Christians that TRUST is about WHO we trust in, not what we trust in. Listen to his words to King Saul as he volunteered to fight Goliath.

David said to Saul, “Let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine; your servant will go and fight him.” Saul replied, “You are not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him; you are only a boy, and he has been a fighting man from his youth.” But David said to Saul, “Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, and struck it and killed it. Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine.” 1st Samuel 17

As Christians, we whole-heartedly trust in God, for:

• His Truth is Sincere

• His Spirit is Competent

• His Promises are Reliable

• His Word is Credible

• His Love is Empathy

• His Incarnation, His Ministry, His Resurrection, His Communion with us is His Integrity  

And so, from the shepherd boy who became a beloved King, we are given the treasured Psalm:  The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.  As the sheep trust the shepherd for their whole lives, so David trusted the Living God.  We too, as Joyful Leaders, trust completely in the Living God, thus becoming a beacon of refuge for those we lovingly lead.