Trust, Whom Do You Trust?

We were fortunate to work with a successful businessman who built a small company into a medium sized company worth close to $10 million. In reviewing his needs, we discovered that he had absolutely NO estate planning documents and saw no need to establish any. We finally convinced him to focus on the problems this would cause and he finally agreed to go and see an attorney that we both knew to be very competent at handling his affairs.

A few months later, the client came back to us with nothing more than a simple will and indicated that this was all the attorney suggested. We called the attorney and discovered that our client had indicated that his net worth was less than $1 million and wanted to keep things as simple as possible. We immediately called our client and asked him why he showed the attorney one million instead of ten million as his net worth? The client’s answer was a classic! I was afraid if I told him I was worth ten million, he would charge me ten times as much to do my documents!

Not only was this stupid and short sighted, it was a waste of money since the real planning that the client needed would still cost him more time and money on top of the wasted time and money already spent. The core problem in this case was our client felt free to share all of his financial information with us but did not want to do that with his attorney because they had not built up enough trust with each other. In other words, he didn’t think he could TRUST his attorney with the truth.

I fear we may do the same thing in some areas of our lives. Some people even try to fool God by pretending He doesn’t know how much we make so he cannot figure what 10% of that figure is in expecting a tithe from us. We pretend like Moses, that we can’t speak so well and therefore are an unlikely volunteer to teach in small groups or even to share with others of the Good News of Christ. What are you hiding? What are you afraid to trust to others?

Proverbs 3:5-6 (RSV) “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make straight your paths.”

Can you find a coin in your pocket or purse and hold it in front of you for a few seconds? Read the words aloud, “In God We Trust”. Why do you think our forefathers decided to add this to our currency?