I’ve discovered over the years that if I ask someone how they are feeling I need to be prepared for anything because there are times when even a polite enquiry can lead to an intense discussion. We never know what is really going on in someone’s life and it can come as a bit of a shock if they start to tell you.

I realised this some years ago when I heard someone asking a friend just that. He clearly wasn’t prepared for the brutally honest answer he received because he just turned around and walked away when his friend replied, ‘I’m just about hanging on in there’. TS Eliot hit the nail on the head when he said, ‘Humankind cannot bear too much reality’.

Over the years I’ve also had to come to terms with another sobering truth too: people don’t always see me in the way I assume they do. That’s why the maxim ‘Know yourself’ can prove a pretty sobering experience.

This became clear to me again the other day when I came across some recent research that suggests that British people trust taxi drivers and restaurant staff more than clergy and priests to tell them the truth. It would seem that just 55 per cent of people aged 16 or above said they would trust clergy or priests “to tell the truth”. If this is true it would mean that there has been a remarkable 30 percentage points drop over the past four decades, and as a pastor, indeed as a Christian I find that highly disturbing.

According to the summary I read nurses, engineers, doctors, scientists and teachers were the most trusted while clergy and priests only made it to 17th place although British clergy were among the most highly trusted in the 28 countries surveyed. At the bottom of the table were journalists, estate agents, government ministers, advertising executives and politicians generally.

All this is hugely challenging for someone in my position because trust should be at the very heart of all I do. Jesus expects me to live His way and that means my word should be my bond, and my trustworthiness should mirror His. The only comforting thing is that He expects the same of everyone of us.

And so, as I set out on another year’s ministry I’d like to apologise if I’ve ever let anyone down. I can assure you it was never intended. In the same way I intend to remind myself regularly that I must never promise anything I cannot deliver. In that sense the first century Jewish sect known as the Essenes will serve as a useful role model. Commenting on them the first-century historian Flavius Josephus said they were ‘eminent for fidelity….Whatever they say is firmer than an oath’.

Now that’s quite a challenge and I will try my best to meet it, but however well I do I will continue to share this wonderful truth: even if people let you down God never will. As millions of Christians down through the years have discovered to their joy, He really is ‘The Way, The Truth and the Life’ and He truly does love us ‘warts and all’.