Trust

I heard a story on the radio the other day that has had me thinking all week. I couldn't find it on the internet, so I'll attempt to repeat the important parts that my damaged brain can remember.

A gentleman approached a street-vendor hoping to purchase some fruit. His total came to $1.10, but the gentleman only had a dollar. The vendor then said, "That's okay. I'll trust you for the dime. Just bring it when you pass by next time." The gentleman extended his thanks to the vendor and carried on his way. The vendor shortly realized that he'd even forgot to collect the dollar from the gentleman, and raced down the street after him.

Upon catching up he told the gentleman, "Hey, you didn't pay me the dollar you had."

The gentleman replied, "I thought you said you trusted me for it?"

The vendor, "I said I trusted you for the dime."

The gentleman, "Then you don't really trust me. You simply extended me a presupposition that I have enough character to bring you a dime."


Is this legit? What does it mean to trust? What is faith? Is it all or nothing? I heard a long time ago that even in modern day Israel, there isn't a good translatable definition for the word faith. They simply understand - even the children. It's a concept, not a word.

We're speaking about contentment this weekend at church. The word that keeps coming to mind is security. I think that's mostly what the American dream really is, in all of us. We'll be content when ________. When we get enough stuff to cover all of our fears or fulfill all of what we think our desires are. To let us be secure enough not to fear. So we don't have to trust in God - which in essence is when we think we will trust God (when we don't have to). We can trust in our stuff. I believe this is why we don't understand trust - the root of contentment.

In other news I received an A+ on a 20 page paper for my Counseling Theories paper. I also received notification that I received a 69 (D+) on a 5 page Psychopathology paper. Now there are plenty of reasons why our professor set us up to fail on this Psychopathology paper (like how he refused to give us guidelines or answer our questions regarding how we would be graded - and then proceeds to grade us)... but it's still interesting how much the lesser grade (on a lesser paper) completely negates the positive feelings received from the more important paper.

Perhaps this has something to teach me about learning disorders... people who try hard and fail because they simply don't have it in them to succeed by the grading system. Unfortunately I raved about this professor on the course evaluation sheet. This was obviously before we got our grades. I see how they work. Grading systems suck.