Expert: Elder Greg Madden - 1/22/2009

Question
Recently I found myself in a horrible situation.  A good friend of mine (my best friend) who is the worship leader at my local church had an affair with my wife.  To compound matters it was not just about the physical indiscretion, but this individual was attempting to convince my wife to leave me and be with him.  

We spoke, I have forgiven him but I have no desire to be associated with him any further because I do not believe he is trustworthy.  So it got me thinking, we sin all the time but God forgives us and still desires to have relationship with us, so does this mean that He does not Trust us?  As humans we very often believe that relationship cannot exist without Trust.  However how can God trust us when He already knows we will disappoint and betray him at some stage in our lives no matter how much we profess that we wont. (Similar to Peter denying Jesus)  

Does God love us without actually trusting us - and is it possible for us as humans to emulate this type of love without trust?  Can true forgiveness exist without trust?

Thanks for your response.

Through God's grace my wife rejected any further advances and confessed the entire affair to me.

Answer
Marcus,

Thank you for your questions and the opportunity to help. I was saddened to read of your situation. It grieves me to hear of how the enemy can do such things to God's children. But be encourage my friend. God has not forsaken you, and He will carry you through this trial.

As to your questios about trust. I suppose, in a very small way, this is how the Lord feels when we break our trust with Him. However, He is God and we are not. He abality to trust us is not based on our performance (past or present). But it is based upon His foreknowledge. He already knows what will happen. Therefore He knows that in the end we will be victorious. It is not some much "trust" God has in us, but a firm knowledge of the furture. You see, we must have an understanding this definition of the nature of God, is to understand His attributes. By attributes I mean His omniscience (He knows all things), His omnipotence (He is all powerful), and His omnipresence’s (He is everywhere at the same time, and at all times). His omnipresence’s allows us to (in a very simplistic way) to see how He can be Father, Son, and Holy Spirit at the same time. Being omnipresent He is not only everywhere at the same time, He is everywhere at every time. God is here, now, at this present time. But He is also in the future. He is already there because He is not limited by time. He is also in the past. You see, time is linier. Time had a starting point (Gen. 1:1) and it will come to an end (Rev. 10:6). But God is eternal. He has no beginning, and He will have no end. Therefore time itself existents within God, God is not limited within time.

Therefore, if God is in your life, and you know that He is, then come hell or high water you can rest assured that He is for you!

Rom. 8:31
What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us?

Marcus, please let me know if this helps or if you have any further questions.

Elder Greg Madden