The Opposite of Trusting in God

Understanding a thing through its opposite…

What is the opposite of trusting in God?

You might be tempted to offer a few answers to this question. Fear would be an answer I’d be inclined to pick. Over-confidence in oneself, perhaps.

But let me suggest an alternative.

The opposite of trusting in God is…drumroll, please…trusting, or relying upon, man.

And no, I’m not talking about simply trusting people, the way you hopefully trust a good friend or a spouse. Or even the way you trust someone with whom you have a business relationship.

When I say trusting in other people, I mean relying on human beings in a fundamental way, to either sustain or support you, or to solve your problems.

Let’s give an easy example. When a person has a serious illness, he’s likely to see a doctor. But how does he relate to that doctor?

The person of faith understands that though a doctor may facilitate his recovery from illness, the outcome of his illness is fundamentally outside human control. The non-faithful person may believe the doctor truly holds the keys to his health. He feels a desperate dependency on a human source of power.

A young woman is interested in getting married. So she starts to hit up matchmakers and friends, hoping they suggest a suitable match.

But does she hold the matchmaker accountable when one after another match fails to come through? Or does she see the matchmaker as a sort of vehicle – capable of creating a channel that allows her to find her intended, but not necessarily in control of the discovery?

Though we know that human efforts can carry great blessing, how we relate to human power is crucial to the question of trusting in God. And this carries over, in a profound way, into our financial lives as well.

Though there are times when we all need help from other people, and situations that indeed, render a person fundamentally dependent, building a system around relying on other people – whether those people be the government, a wealthy parent-in-law, or the handouts of friends and community members – runs contrary to the ethos of trust.

Where do we see this in Jewish liturgy? Well, it’s spelled out pretty plainly in the blessings after eating. “Please, make us not needful – Hashem, our God – of the gifts of human hands nor of their loans, but only of Your Hand that is full, open, holy and generous…”

Remember “being happy in your portion” as the definition of wealth? In other words – paying your way – rather than seeking to live off of what someone else has achieved.

Why is this so important?

Well…perhaps because there are thousands of people of faith who appear to do the opposite of this. Who intentionally construct lives that are built around a model of human dependency. But does it not seem a strange contradiction?

If you have so much faith in God, after all, why not rely on Him yourself?

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