You can not win alone. It is more or less impossible to succeed alone, without needing anyone else. When the reality of that statement hits you, you realise that you have to get better at building relationships. For example, in an ideal world, what you know would be more important than who you know. But in the real world, who you know is often more important than what you know. If the WHO is more important than the HOW, then you have to get better at understanding people, and learning how to deal with them.
You are not wrong to distrust people and be on the defensive. The Bible makes it clear that the heart of man is the most deceitful of all things, and desperately wicked (Jeremiah 17:9). In John 2:24-25, the Bible says Jesus did not trust the people because he understood human nature. You know it’s serious when Jesus does not trust people. In your own life, you have heard the stories of betrayal. You have seen what lust and greed can do to people. All these things do not inspire confidence to work with others or trust anybody.
Nevertheless, if it is impossible to succeed without the time, resources, and energy of other people, then you need to find a way. Our Lord Jesus went on to build an inner circle of apostles and disciples. And even though he still ended up with a Judas in that circle, he completed his mission. That is the balance: wisdom without isolation, discernment without paranoia. You do not stop building because betrayal is possible. You build wisely. You pray for discernment. You set boundaries. You test character over time. But you still collaborate. Destiny is too heavy to carry alone.
