Being Entrusted vs Being Trustworthy

We have just come back from a trip to South Korea. It was a crazy, crazy 1+ hour before we got everybody into these hanboks in a very tight and crowded hanbok rental! Glad we pressed on despite the crying and wailing “triplets!” Seoul was charming but I found a liking to Busan more—photos on social when I get to it. 😅

On a drive to work, my curiosity brought me to question the difference between being entrusted and being trustworthy. They sound similar, and often used together—Oh, he’s entrusted because he’s trustworthy or Because you’re trustworthy, you’ll be entrusted with… Both imply responsibility and confidence placed on a person. But then when you pause and think about it, they come from two different places and they invite two different postures before God.

Entrusted: A Gift of Grace

To be entrusted is to receive something of value that belongs to someone else—it’s a position of stewardship. It’s God handing you a role, a responsibility, an assignment, a season, and even people, like He’s saying, “Take care of this for Me.” Whether you are trustworthy in the sense of competency for that which is being entrusted to you doesn’t matter. It’s based on the entruster’s decision and not on your qualifications.

Now it is required that those who have been given a trust must prove faithful.

1 Corinthians 4:2 NIV

We don’t entrust to ourselves. God does that. He chooses, He calls. He places. And often, He entrusts us with something before we feel fully ready. Not to overwhelm us, but perhaps, to shape us.

Trustworthy: A Fruit of Faithfulness

Being trustworthy, on the other hand, is not something handed to you. It’s something formed in you.

Trustworthiness grows in the quiet places—when no one is watching, when you choose integrity over convenience, when you carry small assignments with big faithfulness, when obedience happens in the hidden.

One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much.

Luke 16:10

Trustworthiness is revealed over time, not claimed overnight.

The Difference

Being entrusted is grace-based, while being trustworthy is character-based.
Being entrusted is about our God who entrusts, while being trustworthy is about us who have been entrusted.
If being entrusted is a gift, being trustworthy is a fruit that grows as we steward that gift.

The response to being entrusted is faithfulness.
An outworking of faithfulness is being trustworthy.

God’s Promotion

God can entrust first, then as we are faithful we become trustworthy. He entrusted Moses with a nation while Moses doubted. He gave Gideon’s mission yet Gideon kept asking for signs. God spoke to Samuel while Samuel was still learning to recognize His voice. He entrusted Mary with the Messiah while she was still processing the angel’s words. God entrusted Paul despite his past and before anyone can attest to Paul’s trustworthiness.

God can also reward our being trustworthy with being entrusted with more. David was a faithful shepherd (few) and made him king (more). Joseph was honest, loyal, and diligent no matter what, and God rose him to be second-in-command of Egypt. Daniel stayed prayerful and had integrity despite roaring challenges, and God gave him influence over kings. The Parable of the Talents explicitly says, “You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much.”

And so whether God entrusts something to you despite your past or readiness, or you are entrusted with more because you have been faithful with the little, promotion in God’s kingdom is simply being entrusted with more of what’s His. And when we’re entrusted, we respond in faithfulness. And then faithfulness is rewarded by being entrusted with more. And that can just go on and on beyond what we can imagine.

God’s promotion doesn’t necessarily mean a change in worldly status, but a greater stewardship. It’s God placing more of His heart, His people, His assignments, His purposes into our hands not to burden us, but to partner with us. Isn’t it grounding that while He can fulfill His plans without us, He actually chooses to make us a part of it?

Let’s be faithful.

Wherever we find ourselves today—newly entrusted (feeling rewarded or feeling unready—or both), slowly being shaped, or quietly faithful in the little—take heart. God sees. God knows. And God is forming in us the kind of trustworthiness that He delights in.

May we never chase “more” for our own sake, but may we be found faithful with whatever He has placed in our care, believing that the God who entrusts is also the God who enables.

🙏🏻 Beyond work, I am definitely grateful to the Lord for entrusting to us 4 boys!!! May we be found faithful in our parenting as we raise them as God’s arrows. If you reached ‘this part, could you say a short prayer for us as we steward our sons, Noah, Ethan, Theo, and Cape? You’re amazing—thank you!