Peace and Unity Need Trust

This newsletter was adapted from a devotional exercise written for The MST Project’s Real Men Pursuing Purity Event 47 in November 2025. It was part of a devotional booklet, “Relational Relationships: Peace and Unity”. The MST Project is a Christian ministry committed to helping every man realize his full potential. MST stands for "Mentoring Men, Strengthening Marriages, Teaching Truth." The MST Project was founded by Christian Lenty and is an international ministry headquartered in Bangkok, Thailand. You can learn more about the MST Project at https://themstproject.com.

Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good. Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honoring each other.

Romans 12:9-10 NLT

“Trust is the fruit of a relationship in which you know you are loved.”

William P. Young

Peace and unity need trust. Healthy trust must be earned. It comes from relating to someone over time and seeing that they are consistently honest, faithful, and reliable. There are also different levels of trust. I have friends that I trust to hold my deepest secrets. They walk with me to Jesus and help me share the most shameful parts of my heart with Him. They also share in my greatest joys. I have other friends that I like, but I wouldn’t share even the most basic information that I wanted to keep secret. I still trust them on some level. I know they aren’t going to try to get me to engage in sinful or harmful activities, but I don’t trust them with deep personal information. I have many other friends in between these two levels of trust. There are many different levels of friendship and many different levels of trust. And that’s okay.

So how do we build trust, and how do we know what level of trust we can have with someone? This is something that many of us overcoming sexual sin struggle with. We simultaneously crave deep intimate relationships and fear them. We either close off completely in an effort of self-protection, or jump right into relationships full speed ahead and become entangled in yet another a codependent relationship.

There are many stages of building healthy relationships that have peace, unity, and trust. First, we start with the people that we interact with on a very basic level and practice kindness and compassion. Some of those people may be a part of our local church or recovery group. They may also be people at our workplace that we share projects or mutual interests with. We can begin to identify people in those groups that we feel comfortable with, and begin to share some very general personal information… basic information about our lives, our careers, our general spiritual vision. If they show a mutual interest and handle our information well, we can consider building a closer relationship. We can invite them to fellowship in a group setting, or invite them to informally share coffee or dinner together. In these settings, we can share a little bit more of our personal information and watch to see how they handle that information. Do they treat it respectfully? Do they maintain confidentiality or do they tell others what we shared? We can also determine if we like having them as a member of our smaller group of friends. Sometimes we’ll simply enjoy having people as a member of our larger group of friends, but don’t necessarily feel comfortable bringing them into a deeper part of our heart. In other words, we may enjoy having some people as casual friends, but we don’t feel comfortable sharing more personal information with them.

Out of our smaller group of friends, we may find two or three people that we feel very comfortable with and consider inviting them into our group of close friends. We can begin to share more specific information about our families… a deeper level of our spiritual vision… challenges … and other information that we wouldn’t usually share in a larger group. As our level or disclosure continues to deepen, we continue to observe how they handle our information. Do they try to understand our perspective, even if they disagree? Do they share an equal level of their own personal information? Again, you’ll find that you’ll feel very comfortable bringing some people into this deeper level of relationship, while others might not be a good fit. That is normal and healthy. Everyone is different and the closer you grow in relationship, the more you’ll see differences and similarities in the deeper areas of your heart that really matter. Most people will remain larger group friends, while only a few will become friends at a deep, personal level. As you continue to build these relationships, you may find yourself relating more with one or two of the members of your smaller group than the others. This person (or people) may become our closest confidant(s), the ones who know everything about us. Of course, this is the goal for our spouse, but we can also develop healthy relationships with other members of our closer groups of friends with whom we bond deeply. Healthy friendships with other members of the same gender are important in our lives. I’ll add that as men, our relationships with other women need to be carefully guarded with healthy boundaries and are usually limited to our larger friend groups. The same principle holds true for women in their relationships with men. This protects the sanctity and exclusivity of our marital or dating relationships.

Having close friends with whom you share peace and unity doesn’t mean that you will always agree on everything, or that there won’t be misunderstandings or wounds. There will be disagreements and offenses even in the healthiest relationships. If we handle those situations properly, they can be an opportunity to develop a deeper trust. Remember, developing trust is a process that takes a lot of time. Offenses and misunderstandings can increase that time, but if we handle offenses properly, they can deepen the trust as the relationship continues. In Matthew 18:15 NLT, Jesus tells us, “If another believer sins against you, go privately and point out the offense. If the other person listens and confesses it, you have won that person back.” Developing trust means that we can respectfully talk about the offenses the other person may have caused, and hear the other person’s heart. Both people need to be willing to develop a curiosity about the other’s feelings and apologize when they have caused an offense. Both need to be willing to respectfully approach the other when they have been wounded with honesty and grace. Honesty with a heart to hear and understand the other person builds trust. Admitting when we are wrong and making amends helps heal the wounds we’ve inflicted on the other person. It shows him or her that he or she can be honest with us and we will respect him or her enough to accept responsibility for what we’ve done wrong.

As I look at the deep level of trust in my relationship with my wife, I remember the times when one of us has gone to the other and respectfully shared what the other did that wounded us. We’ve resisted the urge to become defensive, and took the time to hear the other’s heart and ask clarifying questions. We’ve kept the discussion focused on the issue and took special care not to attack the character of the other. One of the most profound comments my wife has ever said came during a time of vulnerable discussion. My wife said that even if we continue to disagree, if she knew that I made the effort to hear and understand her heart, that she would have a sense of peace. That set me free from the pressure to come to a false agreement, and from being afraid of what would happen if we continued to disagree. I knew that if we both treated each other respectfully in times of disagreements, that our challenges would eventually work themselves out. Those times have deepened our trust in each other and brought more peace and unity in our relationship.

Discussion questions:

1. What helps you build trust in your close relationships?

2. Do you tend to be defensive if a friend comes to you and respectfully tells you that you offended him or her? If so, why do you think you become defensive?

3. Have you ever had a disagreement with a friend that actually deepened your level of trust and unity after it was resolved?

Dan Hitz is the Executive Director of Reconciliation Ministries of Michigan. He is an ordained minister and licensed professional counselor specializing in helping people overcome sexual brokenness, sexual abuse, and trauma. Dan has been in the ministry for over thirty years and lives with his wife, Marianne, in Metro Detroit, Michigan, USA.

Photo used courtesy of Unsplash.com. © 2025 Reconciliation Ministries of Michigan, Inc. This article may be reproduced and distributed as long as no fee is charged and credit is given.

Stepping Out of Isolation: Practical Steps in Making Friends

Dan Hitz is the director of Reconciliation Ministries of Michigan, Inc. He is a Licensed Professional Counselor specializing in helping men and women overcome sexual brokenness, sexual abuse recovery, and trauma. This article is a companion article to last month’s newsletter, Stepping Out of Isolation: Learning from the Relationships of Jesus. More articles and testimonies of overcomers are available on the Reconciliation Ministries website at https://recmin.org/newsletter-archives.

“So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”

John 13:34-35 NLT

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It may be embarrassing to admit as an adult that we have trouble making friends; however, research shows that three in five adults feel lonely. [1] As a therapist, I’m often amazed as I have people telling me how lonely they are and how they wish they had a group of friends. I often wonder what would happen if all these people who are lonely would actually communicate with one another. Could that solve the loneliness problem? The truth is that loneliness can be like a rip tide sometimes. We can get stuck in its current and before we know it, we’re swept out into a deeper sea of isolation. It’s time for us to learn how to interact with others in a rewarding manner. A recovery friend and I have mentioned to each other that we are learning things in our 50s and 60s that we should have learned when we were twelve. There is no shame in learning life lessons later in our adulthood. Transformation in Christ is a lifelong process.

It can be helpful to understand what things in your life contributed to your difficulty in making friends. Childhood wounds, frequent moves and school changes, betrayal, and significant life challenges can cause us to put up emotional walls, or simply quit trying to build lasting friendships. Other times the challenges of life can cause us to become distracted or inward focused and we drift away from our social circles at a time when we need them the most. Before we know it, years have gone by and we realize that we’ve developed a pattern of isolation. We may interact with a few people at work or church, but afterwards we go back to our own homes where we can feel the mixed emotions of craving isolation, despairing the loneliness, and wishing we had someone to hang out with.

When we realize that we’ve built up a pattern of isolation, it’s important to recognize what contributed to those patterns and seek healing. We may need to reach out to a Christian caregiver or a support group to work through some of the wounds and our reactions to them that contributed to the isolation. We may need someone to coach and encourage us to begin taking small steps to reconnect with others. It may be challenging at first, but as you stick with it, the enjoyment will come. Your support team can hold you accountable and recommend some achievable next steps in improving your social interaction.

It is important to understand who we really are in Christ. Often, we hold back in developing friendships because of a false perception of who we are and a negative self-image. We can be over concerned with how we think others see us. We might feel shame because of mistakes we’ve made in the past that we’re still trying to overcome. Maybe we’re still trying to recover from a crisis that we’ve gone through. The best thing we can do is understand our true identity in Christ, embrace our true identity, and interact with others through that identity in humility. Start by sitting in the quiet and listening to the “noise in your heart”. What do you tell yourself about yourself when you’re alone? What are the negative labels that you wear? As you recognize your negative inner thoughts, ask the Lord to show you His opinion of you – how He defines you. That is who you really are in Christ. The truth is that none of us are perfect. We’re all in process, but Jesus Christ is the one who truly defines us. We need to learn to relate to others based on His definition of us.

As you do begin to work on developing relationships, recognize that no one person is able to complete you. Only Jesus Christ can do that. Our friends are those people who walk with us in our lives and help us grow socially, spiritually, and emotionally. Resist the urge to seek after that “one special friend” who is all that we need. That can lead to an “emotional dependency”, where we try to gain our fulfillment and sense of value from gaining attention and affirmation from another. [2] If you find yourself being pulled to one specific person for fulfillment and feeling jealous if that person is talking to others, quiet your heart to see if you are trying to pull them into a void in your heart. Check in with your caregiver or support group. Seek the Lord to heal the deeper needs in your heart and ask Him to help you interact with others from a place of wholeness. Remember, our friends are intended for fellowship, not to be the answer for our emotional needs. As we develop a variety of healthy friendships with a variety of people, our lives will naturally become more fulfilled.

It’s also important to balance recovery conversations with fun interactions, especially if we’re building friendships with people that we’ve met in recovery circles. Healing from the emotional wounds that contributed to your isolation and developing new friendships are two different processes. Those processes may cross paths at times, but it is important to build your new relationships on healthy relational patterns. Avoid focusing on your emotional brokenness in the hopes that others will fix you and become friends in the process. Avoid the temptation to highlight your personal brokenness as a means of gaining sympathy and attention. Exploring our brokenness should be part of our healing process. It is best for our relational development that we focus on common goals and interests. As you begin to increase your social circle, you may find that there are a few people that are a part of both processes, but most friendships will be focused on positive activities and interests. Even with those whom you can share your heart, be sure that the majority of your friendships are focused on encouraging activities and topics. Your emotional healing is best explored in your support groups and therapy sessions.

Learn to speak from a heart of compassion and strength, rather than from a place of passivity or aggression. [2] Many of us have learned false ways of relating due to our past mistreatment. If we were smushed emotionally, we may have settled into a place of passivity and false compliance. When asked by a friend what we want to do on a given Saturday, we may be afraid to mention that we want to go on a photography excursion and just say, “I don’t know. Why don’t you decide.” If our nature is more aggressive, we may have learned to plow our way through others to get our own way. We may not even bother to ask our friends what they want to do this Saturday. We may just tell them we’re going to play mini-golf even if we know they’d rather go on a photo shoot. Learning to relate with compassion and strength means that we can verbalize that we’d like to go on a photo shoot even if we know our friend would rather go golfing, and then come to a compromise. Or, we can learn to lay down our desire to play miniature golf and join our friend on the photo shoot of a special event that only occurs that weekend. Learning to relate out of compassion and strength means that we’ll develop deeper, truer relationships.

Where do we start looking for potential friends and start developing friendships? First, resist the urge to go too deep, too fast. Deep friendships take a long time to develop. In last month’s newsletter, we looked at Jesus’ pattern of relationships as an example of the relationships that we can develop in our own lives. Jesus had the multitudes, the 70 (large group of disciples), the 12 (primary disciples), the 3 (Peter, James, and John), and the one (John, the disciple whom Jesus loved). The numbers aren’t specific, but they help us have a reference to work with. Each of His relational groups progressed to a deeper level of interaction and emotional intimacy. Using that as our pattern, we can start by learning to engage with our “multitudes”. Be kind to the cashier at the store. If the greeter at Wal-Mart actually greets you with a smile, thank her and tell her that she is doing a good job. These types of interactions won’t result in a lasting friendship or a deep conversation, but they will help pull you out of your isolation and help you focus on others.

Next, you can begin to engage more with your “70”. Make a goal of saying hello to a new person at your church, or someone that you pass in the hallway at your workplace. What do you talk about? Try to find a commonality. Was there a specific aspect of the sermon that touched your heart? Are they working on a project that you find interesting? As you have that brief interaction with them, you can see if they share a particular interest or insight of their own and ask a follow up question about it. These types of conversation may last only a few minutes, but you are continuing to learn to step outside yourself and connect to others. It may take some practice to press through the few seconds of awkward silence after the initial hello, but keep working at it. You can also work to develop a sense to know when your brief conversation has naturally concluded and wish them a pleasant day.

After learning to interact with your “70”, you can then work towards developing deeper relationships within your “12”. Join a small group at church or find a community group for a special interest that you have. In a church small group, you will have the opportunity to share more of your heart with a group of people that will likely share more of your values and interests than the larger groups. You can work to develop a deeper emotional connection through the openness and honesty that is a part of healthy church small groups. Your connections in a community special interest group probably won’t be as emotionally based as your conversations in the church small groups, but you’ll find others who share your common interests. You’ll also learn who in your group of “12” is the easiest for you to connect with, and start taking some steps to begin forming your group of “3”.

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You can invite the members of your small group that you seem to interact with the easiest to get together for dinner, an outing, or a fellowship night at your home. Through the increased interaction, you can begin to share a few more personal details about your hopes, your vision, and your life. As you do, you can see how they respond to your information. Do they actually listen and ask follow up questions? Do they offer to share more of their own personal information? Healthy relationships involved a two-way conversation with balanced listening and speaking on both sides. If they respond properly, and you continue to feel comfortable in the relationship, continue to progress slowly and seek another opportunity for interaction as a part of your group of “3”. It’s okay if things don’t seem to progress from the “12” to the “3”. Not everyone will make the transition. As you grow in your friendships, you’ll realize that there are some friends who are simply entertainment friends, and others with whom you can have much deeper conversations. We need both groups of friends.

Remember, healthy friendships take a long time to develop. Don’t get discouraged. Learn to enjoy each stage of relationship development. As you grow in the development of your “3”, you may eventually find yourself developing a deeper relationship with a “1”. You may find that you’ve developed a deep bond with one or two special friends with whom you can share the most personal information and enjoy leisure activities easily. This isn’t necessarily a romantic relationship. It may be a David and Jonathan or a Ruth and Naomi relationship. Healthy same-sex friendships help each other grow towards spiritual and emotional maturity. For those who are called to marriage, the goal is for the spouse to be our “1”; however, we may also have a same-gender friend who is a close second.

It bears repeating that healthy relationships take a long time to develop. Relationships also ebb and flow as life circumstances change. Transitioning to a new church or a new job may change the frequency that we interact with our old groups of “12” or “3”. That’s okay. Resist the urge to sink back into isolation. If the frequency of interaction does change, we can continue to hold those friends as precious even as we work to develop new friendships. As we grow in our relational interactions, we can also celebrate the growth of our friends. It is healthy and appropriate to have multiple friend groups, including multiple groups of three. That makes us richer people and increases our overall social and emotional health. Be patient with yourself, and take the time to recognize that progress you’ve made. Continue to be kind to your multitude, and reach out to your 70, your 12, and your three.

1. Rameer, Venessa Mae. US Loneliness Statistics 2025: Are Americans Lonely. Science of People. January 27, 2025. Retrieved on 3/2/2025 from https://www.scienceofpeople.com/loneliness-statistics/.

2. Thanks to Jeff Simunds of Tower of Light Ministries for sharing his YWAM DTS teaching notes on relationships.

© 2025 Reconciliation Ministries of Michigan, Inc. This article may be reproduced and distributed as long as no fee is charged and credit is given.

This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you slaves, because a master doesn’t confide in his slaves. Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything the Father told me. You didn’t choose me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask for, using my name. This is my command: Love each other.

John 15:12-17 NLT

Stepping Out of Isolation: Learning from the Relationships of Jesus

Dan Hitz is the director of Reconciliation Ministries of Michigan, Inc. He is a Licensed Professional Counselor specializing in helping men and women overcome sexual brokenness, sexual abuse recovery, and trauma. More articles and testimonies of overcomers are available on the Reconciliation Ministries website at https://recmin.org/newsletter-archives.

“So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”
John 13:34-35 NLT

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Many of us who came out of sexual brokenness have a difficult time developing healthy friendships. Those who came out of same-sex attraction may wrestle with insecurity and find it difficult to relate to those of the same sex as a friend rather than an attraction. Others have used heterosexual porn for so long that they find it difficult to step out of the porn induced isolation to embrace the challenges of becoming known. Many of us didn’t learn to be open and honest in the relationships we did have. Maybe our friends didn’t really know the whole story of our lives. They didn’t know we had a dark side... maybe they were a part of that dark side.

So where do we start? We can learn about developing healthy relationships by looking at the different levels of intimacy in the relationships that Jesus had. Before we do that, we need to clarify how we’re using the word “intimacy”. In our brokenness, many of us have corrupted that word and equated it solely with sex; however, there are many forms of intimacy. Dictionary.com defines intimacy in a range from “a close, familiar, and usually affectionate or loving personal relationship with another person or group” to “sexual intercourse” [https://www.dictionary.com/browse/intimacy]. In the context of this article, we are using the word intimacy to describe a variety of interactions with people ranging from very casual with limited interaction, to a very close level of Christian fellowship with a deep level of trust, commitment, and vulnerability. Sexual intimacy would only be applicable for those who are in the deepest level of relationship within the marriage covenant.

Jesus had relationships on different levels, each with a different degree of intimacy. To begin with, He ministered to the multitudes. They knew his overall teachings, but they didn’t know the deep areas of His heart. His interactions with the multitude were likely on a practical and instructional level. From the multitudes, Jesus had a group of 70 disciples [Some manuscripts say 72.] that He trained and sent out for ministry [Luke 10:1-20]. We see a deeper level of intimacy developing here. While He spoke in parables to the multitudes knowing that they wouldn’t understand the meanings, He explained the parables to His disciples [Matthew 13:10-16]. From the 70, He chose twelve disciples for an even deeper level of relationship and training. With the twelve, Jesus shared more of His heart and mission than with the others. Jesus then continues to deepen His intimacy and level of disclosure with a more specific group of three disciples; Peter, James, and John. Unlike the others, they were with Him on the Mount of Transfiguration [Matthew 17:1-9] and saw Him raise Jairus’ daughter from the dead [Mark 5:21-43]. He trusted them not to tell anyone else about these events until after He rose from the dead [Matthew 17:9, Mark 5:43]. Jesus shared more of His personal struggle with them in the Garden of Gethsemane as He called them to follow Him deeper into the garden than the others [Matthew 26:36-38]. And finally, from the three disciples who were closest to Jesus, He had John, the disciple whom He loved [John 21:20-24]. It is interesting at the Last Supper, as Jesus was explaining that one of the disciples would betray Him, Peter motioned to John, who was leaning on Jesus’ chest, to ask Him specifically who the betrayer was. Peter could have asked Jesus himself, but he knew that John was the one who could ask Jesus this level of information and receive an answer. Jesus actually did answer John as He dipped a piece of bread and gave it to Judas [John 13:26].

So how do we translate Jesus’ relationships onto our own relationships? We’ll use both a church setting, and a recreational interest or hobby. We all have our multitude – those we work with and those who are in our community settings. We interact with these people and share some generic information on occasion, but we don’t share important information with them. Out of these people, we have our “70”. They may go to the same church as us, or share the same hobby as us. We might share more general information about ourselves as we engage in those activities together, but we don’t share vulnerable information about ourselves. From the “70” we have our “twelve”. Not only do these people attend the same church as us, they are also in our small group or recovery group. In our small groups we begin to share more vulnerable personal information than we would in the larger groups. There is a deeper level of trust that this information will be held in confidence and not shared outside the group. As we become more familiar with the members of a special interest group practicing the same hobby together, we may begin to share more of our personal information as our level of comfort increases, but we still withhold our most personal information. As we continue to engage with our “twelve”, we may find a few members within those groups with whom we begin to develop an even deeper bond. They become our “three”. With them, we develop a deeper trust that allows for some of the deepest levels of disclosure and vulnerability. They know our deepest hopes, dreams, and challenges. They know our failures and our victories. They have permission to speak into the deepest areas of our lives and challenge us when we are falling short. Finally, out of our “three” we develop our “one”. This is the one person on earth that we trust in the deepest levels of our hearts. In the spiritual realm, this is the relationship that we should have with Jesus. In the earthly realm, for those who are married, this is the relationship that we should have with our spouse. For those who are not married, this is the relationship we have with the one friend that God has given us to invite into the deepest level of trust and intimacy.

Developing healthy relationships takes a lot of time. It is important to note that the numbers in our examples are just for reference. We may not have a group of twelve good friends, a group of three best friends, or that one best friend; but the numbers help us understand the concept. How do we even begin to apply Jesus’ model of relationships to our own lives? We’ll look at some more practical tips in a future newsletter. For now, we can start by recognizing who we are in Christ. We aren’t defined by our past or current struggles. We are beloved sons and daughters of the Father in Heaven. As we learn to interact out of our true identity in Christ, we can begin to develop a confidence to embrace the challenges of engaging with others on a personal level. We won’t click with everyone. We may reach out to some people who won’t respond. We can remind ourselves who we are in Christ during the challenges and receive His grace to keep trying. As we continue to reach out and work on building healthy relationships, our efforts will be rewarded.

Pray for the Lord’s help as you look around your “70” for some people that share common interests. Join a small group at church. If you like cooking or photography, sign up for a church or community group that focuses on those things. Out of that group you can begin to notice who you seem to relate to easier than the others. Consider inviting that person or people to get together outside the group. When you do, you can learn more about the relationship by sharing a little bit more of your personal information and see how the other person or people respond. Not everyone will make the transition from your “70” to your “12”. If the person seems to respond well to your openness and shares more of their own heart, you can continue to build the relationship over time. If the person doesn’t seem to respond well to your invitation to grow the relationship deeper, don’t try to force deeper intimacy. Recognize it for what it is and continue to interact with them as part of your “70” when appropriate. Remember, developing healthy relationships takes time. Resist the urge to force the relationship to grow deep too quickly. As you grow your relationships with your “twelve”, prayerfully ask the Lord to help you develop your group of “three”, and trust Him to help you grow in your relationship with your “one”.

Photo is of a model and used under license with shutterstock.com. © 2025 Reconciliation Ministries of Michigan, Inc. This article may be reproduced and distributed as long as no fee is charged and credit is given.