Love . . . always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

— 1 Corinthians 13:7

We talked earlier about the power of God’s love and how amazing it is (Oct. 19). Let’s look today at what love does to trust.

Our passage tells us that “love . . . always trusts.” Other translations say that “love trusts all things.” The original Greek text says, more simply, “trusts all”—always and all things. When I first noticed that, it seemed impossible to me.

Have you ever been let down by someone only to find that it was because they never trusted you? You might want to scream about who turned out not to be trustworthy! I learned early in life not to trust people that I sensed didn’t trust me. But that can lead to a destructive cycle in which people begin to trust each other less and less.

Love offers a different approach. Love says, “I’ll give you trust.” Period.

An unrelenting effort to “trust all” moves us to dig as deep as we need to in order to find what is trustworthy. And that always brings us to God.

The world will let you down, and you should feel free to move yourself to safety when you need to. But God’s perfect love can drive us to look constantly for new ways to trust.

God, in and through your perfect love, help us to find trust that doesn’t depend on circumstances but on you. Amen.