Daniel – thank you for reading and commenting. I write in obedience – I had no idea people read! That aside, you bring up such a great point for me to consider. when I wrote this, I was envisioning trusting without verifying things of minimal consequence. In reality, for newer relationships, I do “verify” HIGH stakes asks. I suppose trust grows like a bank account, the more trust I have, the less I verify. The greater the risk, the greater the need to verify. Perhaps in between trust and verifying is wisdom. I’ve been bit recently by trusting and verifying someone close – we lost a lot. But in the middle, I didn’t use a lot of wisdom. I wonder if that’s the balance. I so appreciate your perspective and willingness to ask a hard question. You are iron sharpening iron, friend. Thank you. blessings to you and yours today.

I’m wondering whether you see a connection between “trust but verify” and either “wise as serpents but harmless as doves” or the example of the Bereans?

At one point in my life I trusted without verification and I lost a small fortune… and a friendship.

15 years later I repeated this mistake. Today I am very much in the “don’t trust until you have repeatedly verified camp.” My trust has to be earned, so verification is a natural process.

At some point, trust with me IS earned and I spend very little to no time verifying unless the person speaking is speaking outside the realm of their expertise. I still take it on a case by case basis.

I trust my doctor, but he’s not a pastor or a psychologist. I trust my neighbor, but he’s not my lifelong friend.

I look for multiple angles to everything and like to bring up the contrarian views as a personal practice. All my comments are meant to be good natured, sometimes challenging, but always appreciative.