Your credibility really matters. If you're not perceived as trustworthy, your potential for living in harmony with other people is slim to none. This is because credibility is built on the three pillars of integrity, benevolence, and competence. In the perception of others, you must maintain these pillars. Otherwise, you'll carry no weight with them, so influencing them will become impossible. You must be above reproach, charitable, and equal to the complexities of your given roles. Your credibility really matters.
In addition, your credibility is all-encompassing. Trust impacts every one of your relationships from the trivial ones to the critical. If you're a mechanic, you desperately need credibility to maintain customers. And, if you're a parent, your children must trust you deeply. Otherwise, they'll hold you at arm's length. Think about the lengths you personally go to every day to ensure other people are trustworthy, even about trivial matters. Everyone is keeping score when it comes to credibility. You can't afford to neglect this reality. Your credibility is all-encompassing.
Moreover, your credibility is fragile. It is gained in nickels and dimes and lost in one hundred dollar bills. Ever imperfect, you are always damaging it, so your integrity and benevolence and competence deposits into credibility must be greater than your withdrawals from it. This isn't easy. Also, there is the matter of distorted perceptions. Here the issue of credibility can take an unfair turn in its fragility. Even if you maintain reasonable levels of integrity, benevolence, and competence, you can still lose your credibility. Whether just or unjust, other people live by their perceptions, even when their opinions are inaccurate or unrealistic or unfair. Your credibility is fragile.
Your credibility is also elusive. When you lose credibility, you often don't realize it, at least at first. People are all different. A few people tell you upfront you have a trust problem, but most people safely and secretly adjust their lives, usually distancing themselves from you. You may think everything is fine, but as time passes, it all adds up. Something feels different; it's hard to put your finger on it. With such people you begin to feel like you live in a glass room with them, a relational glass room furnished with but one door for entering and exiting. When you enter the room, you can see through the glass walls, but there are no doors into the other rooms of the relationship. Similarly, you can see through the glass ceiling above, but there is no relational stairway up. Hence, you can enter and exit the relational glass room, but you can't move past that point. Your credibility is elusive.
In conclusion, since your credibility matters so much, you desperately need God's perspective on it (Ps 119:105). God, speaking via the Scriptures, indicates that credibility is invaluable (Prov 22:1), so you should establish it and preserve it accordingly. Moreover, He also wants you to be relationally conscientious with everyone (Matt 5:23-24; Rom 12:18), even your enemies (Matt 5:44). Furthermore, God also says that salvaging your credibility won't always be possible (Lk 6:26), even if losing it is undeserved and unfair (Matt 5:11; Lk 7:33-35; 1 Pet 4:14-16). After all, God the Father didn't even expect Jesus, who was "without blemish or spot" (1 Pet 1:19), to please everyone all the time. And, if you're a believer, Jesus' story will reflect your story (Jn 15:18; Matt 10:24-25). Finally, if you're wise, you'll live within the parameters of these complex tensions, trusting God and His Word,
especially when life doesn't seem fair. Your all-encompassing credibility, while ever-fragile and ever-elusive, is, nonetheless, vital. Your credibility really matters.
“This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy. But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by any human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself. I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me. Therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive his commendation from God” (1 Cor 4:1-5).
