All companies should aspire to be trusted. All people should aspire to be trusted. But, in order to be trusted, you must be trustworthy. In this edition of By Your Life, we talk about earning and extending trust because great teams are built on trust.

Mass Readings Audio
http://ccc.usccb.org/cccradio/NABPodcasts/2019/19_04_28.mp3

Second Sunday of Easter (Or Sunday of Divine Mercy) – April 28, 2019

Happy Easter again and welcome to the fifty-seventh episode of By Your Life. Thank you for joining me. If you haven’t already, please sign up for notifications on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, wherever you listen, or on the right side of this page so I can notify when each new episode is posted. And please forward to a friend, if you think they would benefit from By Your Life.

My goal is to inspire, empower, support, challenge, and encourage you to connect Sunday, with Monday-Friday, in a secular, business world. It’s my desire to help you live our Catholic faith in the marketplace. I hope to offer you practical ways to go forth and glorify the Lord by your life.

In this edition, we’ll reflect on the readings for the Second Sunday of Easter, or Sunday of Divine Mercy. Oh my, there is so much to ponder from the first, second and Gospel readings. This week, I heard the same message from our priest and from others online that Jesus Christ was and is truly risen from the dead. It isn’t a myth. It isn’t a legend. It isn’t a fable or a story or a lie. It is truth. Do you believe this truth? I mean, do you REALLY BELIEVE this TRUTH?

We are all like Thomas. That is, we weren’t there that first day when Jesus appeared to the apostles after his resurrection, so we must rely on the testimony and witness of others. If you’re like me, you’ve probably had doubts throughout your faith journey. It is okay to doubt. It is okay to question if your skepticism leads you to seek the truth. Thomas didn’t say I’ll never believe. He just wanted to see for himself. He didn’t turn away and go back to his former way of life, instead, he returned and sought out the Lord.

We are a people who God created with the ability to reason. We think critically. We analyze data. We evaluate scenarios. We consider alternative possibilities. We are always trying to make sense out of what the world presents to us. Some of us are more willing to believe until proven wrong and others need proof before accepting a truth as being true. We all have different thresholds for trusting others.

In my coaching practice, I use assessments to help people understand these natural differences in our human tendencies. One of the assessments is a DISC behavioral style assessment. The D scale measures how you respond to problems and challenges. The I scale measures how you influence others to your point of view. The S scale measures how you respond to the pace of the environment. And, the C scale measures how you respond to rules and procedures set by others.

When we consider the I scale, people who are “High Is” are very trusting and those who are low on the I scale, need to be shown. I suspect that Thomas was a Low I, and Jesus knew this. He didn’t criticize him. Instead, he helped him by giving him the proof that he needed. Jesus said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe.” (Jn 20:27)

Are you this patient with someone who approaches trust differently than you? It can be frustrating if you are someone who tries to convince others with your passionate words, as Peter and the other disciples did when they said to him, “We have seen the Lord,” (Jn 20:25) only to have the other person demand proof. We tend to think, “Why can’t you just trust me?” Similarly, the person who demands proof is thinking, “Why can’t you show me?” And conflict is created. Trust me. Show me. Trust me. Show me.

The truth is, the other person isn’t intentionally being annoying. They are just being who they are…beautifully and wonderfully made. In his book, No Man Is an Island, Thomas Merton wrote, “The beginning of love is the will to let those we love be perfectly themselves, the resolution not to twist them to fit our own image. If in loving them we do not love what they are, but only their potential likeness to ourselves, then we do not love them: we only love the reflection of ourselves we find in them.”

Maybe this week, you can consider how Jesus responded to Thomas and offer just a little more consideration to others for their differences. You’ll discover it’s not just about being more considerate; it is more essential to being effective.

Think about how Thomas responded once he saw the wounds of the Risen Christ. He responded, “My Lord and my God!” (Jn 20:28) Sure, it took Jesus a little time and effort to address Thomas’s unbelief, but what if he hadn’t? What if Jesus allowed Thomas to continue to doubt? What would that have done to the mission? How would one skeptic have negatively impacted the whole group?

I was working with a small business a few years ago where the trust me/show me conflict wasn’t resolved and it didn’t end well. The business owner wanted to hire someone who had experience in the industry, understood the reporting requirements and was proficient with the billing software the company used. But, because she had been burned by the person who held the job previously, she was skeptical and searched a long time for the right person to fill the position. She was thrilled when she finally hired him. The new employee was competent and hit the ground running. But because of her prior experience, the business owner didn’t trust that he was doing the job. She needed proof. She kept asking him to run reports and do other tasks to satisfy her concerns.

He, on the other hand, was frustrated by all this extra work which he felt was unnecessary. He kept fighting the boss and resisted completing what he thought were pointless tasks. He felt that he had been hired for his expertise and now that expertise was being questioned.

While I understood the new employee’s frustration, I coached him to invest in developing trust. He knew that he was doing the job, but his new boss didn’t. He had to earn the trust he thought he deserved. Unfortunately, his pride got in the way and the more he resisted, the more his boss didn’t trust him. How much more effective would he have been if he just adapted to accommodate his boss’s doubts, as Jesus did for Thomas.

He’s not working there anymore and that’s a shame because he did have the skills and the knowledge required to do a good job. He just didn’t have the humility he needed to earn his boss’ trust.

This Second Sunday of Easter is also Divine Mercy Sunday. In a Church build on 2,000-year-old tradition, this is a relatively new observance. It wasn’t until May 5, 2000, that the Vatican decreed that the Second Sunday of Easter would be known as Divine Mercy Sunday.

As a new tradition, I didn’t know about the image of Divine Mercy until the spring of 2006, when I attended a women’s retreat and a large painting was displayed at the front of the room with the inscription “Jesus, I Trust in You” beneath the image of Christ with red and white rays radiating from his heart. As the retreat weekend progressed, and I listened to women give witness to how Jesus was working in their lives, I kept looking at the image and asking myself, “Do I trust in you?” The answer at that time was “no.” I didn’t trust in him because, despite being a cradle Catholic, I didn’t know him. Because He is trustworthy, and I wanted to know him, and I wanted to trust him, it was I who needed to change.

The same can be said of my client. The new employee may have needed to earn trust, but she also needed to extend to him a willingness to trust. Because she didn’t know her new employee, and therefore didn’t trust him, her response was to put the onus on him to prove himself. She kept pressure on him as if he’d done something wrong. She didn’t invest in the relationship. We can’t trust people when we don’t have a relationship with them. We have to know people to trust them. We have to know Jesus to trust in Him.

For my part, after that retreat weekend, I decided to invest in my relationship with Jesus by reading the Gospels daily, starting with Matthew and working my way through to John. I invested in daily Mass. I invested in adoration. I invested in meaningful prayer. I met him in the Sacrament of Reconciliation more regularly than once or twice a year. The more I invested, the more he proved to me that I could let go and trust him.

I have worked with several organizations that included the adjective “trusted” when they described themselves in their mission. All companies should aspire to be trusted. All people should aspire to be trusted. But, in order to be trusted, you must be trustworthy.

Using trustworthiness as the attribute to be developed is a great way to coach someone and a great way to reflect on your own behavior. Seriously, do you want to be more or less trustworthy? How does your behavior impact people’s willingness to trust you? When you say, “I’ll try,” does that make you more or less trustworthy? When you make excuses and blame others, does that make you more or less trustworthy?

On the other hand, when you say, “no I can’t do that, but I can do this,” does that make you more trustworthy? When you admit to failing, apologize, fix it and learn from it, does that make you more or less trustworthy? We all fail and failing doesn’t mean we can never be trusted. It just means we must work harder to earn trust. It starts with taking responsibility for our mistakes.

Just look at Peter. He denied the Lord. Three times he said he didn’t know him. That was not a little mistake. That was a big fat triple lie. Yet, he took responsibility, wept for his sins, and moved on, in a big way.

We heard in the first reading from the Acts of the Apostles, that “many signs and wonders were done among the people at the hands of the apostles” (Acts 5:12) and “the people esteemed them.” (Acts 5:13) So much so that “they even carried the sick out into the streets and laid them on cots and mats so that when Peter came by, at least his shadow might fall on one or another of them.” (Acts 5:15) This was not because anything Peter did, except to put total trust in Jesus so that the Lord could work miracles through him.

So, this week, instead of taking control and relying on yourself, will you place your trust in the Lord? Really, instead of trying to be in command of everything, will you let go and let God? Listen to these words of Thomas Merton. “I cannot make the universe obey me. I cannot make other people conform to my own whims and fancies. I cannot make even my own body obey me.” The harder we try to hold onto control, the more frustrated we are.

And, how will you earn trust this week? Instead of excusing your lax behavior, will you strive to increase your trustworthiness? Instead of thinking, “its no big deal,” will you make a big deal out of building trust? Einstein said, “Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters,” and so it is in small matters that trust is built. Great teams are built on trust. Trust is earned. What will you do to earn trust this week? What will you do to help others become more trustworthy?

Let us ask the Holy Spirit to help us grow our relationships with him and one another by extending and earning trust.

Everliving God, who strengthened your apostle Thomas with sure and certain faith in your Son’s resurrection: Grant us the grace to so perfectly and without doubt believe in Jesus Christ, our Lord and our God, so that our faith may never be found wanting in your sight; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen

May God bless you abundantly this Easter Season and may you glorify the Lord by your life. Amen.

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