Before 6.30pm that evening General Montgomery had decided to make de Guingand his Chief of Staff; and in the cool of the evening he addressed his assembled staff officers, and ended his address by announcing that he appointed de Guingand Chief of Staff of the Eighth Army, every order given by de Guingand would be regarded as coming from him, and would be obeyed instantly! It was little short of a miracle that the two men should meet, and establish such a degree of trust within a single day; and nothing short of genius that General Montgomery should have announced that trust in the way he did. Similarly with God; proof that God exists is a waste of time. What you want is complete trust between God and man, and man and God. Then there is a chance of getting something done, in the world of the spirit; without it, there isn’t. It is as simple as that.
In the Army, the constraints of military discipline in a way make it easier for there to be this mutual trust. In civilian life, the only situation which is readily going to provide the need for such trust is the family; and whilst the need for such trust is every bit as necessary as it is in War, it is not so pressing. Furthermore the situation is confused by sexual allure, which may attract men and women to each other who are hopelessly unsuited, and who could not be faithful for more than a few years. Nevertheless, confused or not, nothing can be achieved unless the parties desire to trust each other, and are prepared to declare their trust in each other, in part at least. In this context discussing whether other universes exist, only provides trivial conversation on a Sunday afternoon. It has no more relevance than that.
So how do men and women who desire to trust each other, learn to trust each other more? Through adversity. In Part II of Faust, Goethe marries Faust to Helen of Troy. All is happiness while the sunshine lasts, but when adversity strikes their affection is soon on the rocks. Romantic love is always liable to disintegrate when called on to endure more than it had bargained for. The mistake is to bargain. Shakespeare summed it up, when he wrote:-
“Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
…
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved”.
You do not bargain, because that means you have a hidden agenda; and that prevents the possibility of complete trust ever emerging. So it does no harm to base human relations on the pattern of your relationship with any real or mythical God in your mind – because there can be no bargaining with Him. The danger of proclaiming Sunday by Sunday that you are a miserable sinner, is that if your protestations of guilt were even half true, nobody in his senses would trust you an inch.