My oldest son graduated from high school this year and when my wife and I asked him where he’d like to go for a long weekend senior trip, he instantly decided on Los Angeles. My son has a dream to be in ministry and plant churches so the main reason he wanted to go to LA was to be able to visit his hero – Erwin McManus – and attend a MOSAIC church service. In the service we attended that weekend, Erwin McManus delivered a message from a series they were doing called The Human Connection. That week the topic was trust, and largely that message was the inspiration for this blog.
Can I be transparent? I’m growing tired of always having to watch out for myself. I’m sure you are as well. In today’s world we are constantly being threatened by scams, misinformation campaigns, identity theft, phishing attempts, and any number of other attempts to steal something from us. In a way, it can chip away at our humanity and our faith and trust in other people. Some might say that’s a good thing – people aren’t to be trusted and it’s good to recognize that. But I would disagree. I want to be a person that can be trusted, and I think most people would feel the same. But trust, like other virtues like love, is reciprocal. A loving person is loved and an unloving person is difficult to love. A trusting person is trusted but an untrusting person is difficult to trust.
In his message, Erwin McManus points out that our society is moving more and more toward disconnection and isolation and this has led to led to greater loneliness, depression, and despair. We fight for our independence and autonomy, and as a result, we find ourselves disconnected and unable to draw on the power of human connection in community. We need each other and we also need to be able to live in a posture of trust toward each other.
I can hear the objection – “To be a trusting person is to be a naïve person.” What is the difference? I think it’s a good idea here to define “humanity” vs. it’s antonym (we’ll use “malevolence.”) If humanity seeks to connect to and identify the best in other humans, malevolence seeks to create disconnection, pain, and harm. We want to be able to trust humans, but in our society where humans and technology are often intertwined, it can become confusing exactly who or what we are being asked to trust. So in that email from a friend or associate that includes an unexpected an vague attachment, link, or request, how are we to trust that the message is legitimate? Make a human connection. Pick up the phone or walk down the hall and talk to them in person. Technology can be a tool used by humanity to bring us together. It can also be a tool used by malevolence to tear us apart. Understand who you can trust – humans – not email. Unfortunately, at times, humans will let us down. Humans are not perfect. We will at times break trust with others and others will break trust with us. But if we can maintain a human connection, even in times of broken trust, the relationship can be repaired. In so doing, we hold onto our humanity and grow in the complexities of trust.
As a technology professional, my mission from our own mission statement is to enthusiastically manage technology so my clients can feel confident and succeed in business. How can I apply this to the conundrum of trust? How can I help my clients hold onto their humanity by encouraging them to hold onto trust while also making them aware of the very real risks of malevolence trying to exploit their trust? Ironically, the best way to help people hold onto trust is to implement a model of security in a network called Zero Trust. Zero Trust is somewhat of a blanket term much like “cloud” that can be applied in a number of ways depending on what your business and network looks like. In a nutshell, Zero Trust uses technology and polices to provide a higher level of security by eliminating as many human trust decisions as possible. This protects against threat fatigue and helps keep trust in humans intact. There will always need to be continuing education for users on how to identify threats in technology. However, the end goal should always be to help people hold onto as much of their humanity as possible by building trust in humans with a healthy dose of understanding technology risks.
