Can trust really be rebuilt?

A pastor told a story about his teenage son who was dating a girl and was only allowed to see her on certain nights. On one of the nights he wasn't supposed to see her, the son told his parents he was going over to a friend's house. Well, mom and dad discovered the truth that the boy had actually gone to visit his girlfriend.

When the son got home, the father took out a fine English tea cup from the cupboard and smashed it on the floor. He told his son that restoring trust between them would be like gluing that cup back together again. The son said it would take too long, to which the father responded, "Well, that's how hard it is to build trust again."

So the son spent weeks carefully reconstructing that cup and gluing it back together. Through the process, he learned an important lesson: Trust only takes a single act to break, but often takes much longer to rebuild.

Maybe today, you've been wronged and someone has broken your trust. Give them the chance to rebuild it. And if you've done something to break someone's trust in you, get to work rebuilding it. While it may take time, trust-building will be a worthwhile endeavor that will restore relationships for the glory of God.