Ways to Build Trust
Be Consistent: The little things done consistently make for a higher level of trust. Consistently keeping your word and your promises builds trust.
Be Truthful: Honesty builds trust. Dishonesty breaks down the ability to trust.
Be a Person of Prayer: Pray with each other and for each other. As two people draw closer to God, they automatically draw closer to each other. Seek God’s direction for every part of your lives individually and together.
Be Clear: Be clear about your expectations, plans, etc. People trust the clear and mistrust the ambiguous.
Be Compassionate: Think beyond yourself. Never underestimate the power of sincerely caring. Be empathetic about someone’s feelings. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” is not just an old saying. If followed, it builds trust.
Be a person of Godly Character: Do what is right over what is easy. Character is a mix of two things. One is integrity, which means being the same from beliefs to words to actions. The other is moral character. Take the high road in every interaction.
Be a Giver: Be a giver. Be humble and look for ways to pour into, bless, and serve each other.
Be Teachable: Staying fresh, relevant and capable builds trust. The humble teachable person keeps learning new and better ways of doing things. There is always more to learn so make a habit of reading, learning, and listening to fresh information.
Be a Connector: All relationships are best built by establishing genuine connection. Communicate well. Ask questions. Be a good listener. Save the more difficult conversations for face-to-face times.
Be Committed: Be willing to work through conflicts. Stick with it through adversity. Don’t harden your heart. Pray for God to fill you with more love. Be willing to sacrifice for the greater good. Commitment reveals and builds trust.
Be Open to Correction: Don’t be defensive when someone offers a suggestion or idea that could improve your character. Be willing to listen and pray about it.
Be Grateful: Being grateful for things said or done for you and acknowledging that quickly helps to build trust.
Be Forgiving: Trusting doesn’t mean mistakes won’t happen. When they do, be forgiving. Holding on to past transgressions will only erode trust in the relationship. Each person should feel the ability to make mistakes without it being a constant source of contention. Letting go of the hurt, accepting the apology and moving on builds a trust based on truth and love. Don’t go to sleep when you are angry. Forgive first. You may not feel like forgiving. Forgiveness is a choice. Forgiving can be a process. Praying for the person will help with this process.
Be Quick to Apologize: Acknowledge when you are wrong and quickly apologize.
Be Supportive - If one person in the relationship doesn’t feel that they can take a risk, make mistakes or try new things without support, the relationship will falter. On the other hand, being supportive in good times and bad opens us up to living our truth knowing someone has our back.
Be Vulnerable-Be willing to let someone into the deeper parts of your heart. When someone is vulnerable with you be trustworthy and don’t share their inner world with others unless you have their permission and never in a way to shame them.
Be Considerate:-Disagreeing in front of other people can cause shame or humiliation. Love is not rude. This kind of behavior will damage your lines of communication and your trust factor. Waiting until you can have a private conversation so you can formulate your thoughts in a respectful way to encourage an honest and open discussion.
Be Calm: Speak with kindness and gentleness in your voice even if you are in a conflict. Don’t yell or call someone names. Don’t stomp out in the middle of a conflict. Don’t freeze or shut the person out. If you need a break, set an amount of time to think about it individually and then resume the discussion.
Parts of this page are things that God has helped me to learn, parts are adapted from
David Horsager’s 8 Pillar’s of Trust (modified to fit a relationship rather than a business setting)
Parts of this are adapted from the blog “Power of Positivity”
Are you having a hard time trusting Jesus? Did you know that He is a PERFECT Savior!!! God gave me this song to help me remember a message I heard many years ago.
Click Here to listen. Or Click Here to listen to more music to help you know and trust God more.
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