Trust in ourselves and in God can bring peace amid life’s fears and uncertainties
The virtue of trust
Monday, September 14, 2026
*Fr. Eduardo Barrios, SJ
The lives of many people are marked by existential anxiety. Many live in constant fear. If trust were to flourish in their hearts, they would have greater peace and be happier.
I. Human Trust
On a purely natural level, human relationships become unbearable when trust is absent.
Although bad news may tempt us to distrust others, we have no choice but to live trusting people. Otherwise, we would not be able to take a single step in life. For example, when traveling on a highway, we do not assume that drivers coming from the opposite direction are suicidal and are going to crash into us. If we did not trust them, it would be better never to travel by car.
Another example: When food is placed on the table at home, we trust that it is not spoiled. Many other examples could be given to demonstrate how human coexistence must necessarily be based on trust.
Distrust in one’s own abilities can also be paralyzing. Some people are insecure. They believe that nothing they do will turn out well. Sports experts, for example, say that many athletes underperform when they doubt their own abilities.
Someone might think that self-confidence is equivalent to a lack of humility or excessive presumption. Not necessarily. Self-confidence is virtuous when we recognize that our abilities are gifts from God.
II. Trust in God
Trust in God is closely related to the theological virtue of hope. It could be said that trust is the flower and fruit of hope.
St. Thomas Aquinas defines it as “hope strengthened by a solid conviction.”
It is grounded in the credibility we give to God’s promises. Those who trust in God know that God has always fulfilled his promises. God’s faithfulness in the past guarantees that he will continue to act in the same way in the future.
Believers place great hope in God because they know his divine perfections, especially his immeasurable love for us, his beloved creatures.
God has chosen to reveal himself as a provident and benevolent Father. His divine providence cannot help but inspire us to trust him.
Already in the Old Testament, the prophet Jeremiah praised trust in God with these poetic words: “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, whose hope is the Lord. He is like a tree planted beside the waters that stretches out its roots to the stream” (Jer. 17:7-8). A little earlier, he declares “cursed” the one who trusts only in human resources, “whose heart turns away from the Lord” (Jer. 17:5).
In the New Testament, Jesus Christ exhorts us to trust when he says: “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. ... All these things the pagans seek” (Mt. 6:25, 32). He illustrates this teaching poetically by pointing to the birds of the sky and the lilies of the field, creatures that God cares for even though they are far less important than we are.
When Jesus presented children as worthy of imitation, he was referring to their filial trust. This is the meaning of his words: “Let the children come to me, and do not prevent them; for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these” (Mt. 19:14).
St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus was deeply moved by this verse. Upon it she built her school of spirituality, known as “spiritual childhood,” which consists of nothing other than living in complete trust in God.
In truth, we must acknowledge that the trials of life can shake our trust in God. Jesus himself cried out from the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mk. 15:34). These are the opening words of Psalm 22. But Scripture scholars teach that Jesus prayed the entire psalm, which also contains expressions of hope.
St. Paul had to struggle against the current throughout his apostolic life, but shipwrecks, obstacles and setbacks could not take away his trust in God. After mentioning tribulation, distress, persecution, hunger, nakedness, danger and the sword, he declares: “But God, who loves us, will make us victorious over all these trials” (Rom. 8:37).
Toward the end of his life, the elderly St. Paul continued to bear witness to his trust in God: “I know well in whom I have put my trust, and I am convinced that he is able to safeguard until the last day what he has entrusted to me” (2 Tim. 1:12).
In the history of the Church, we find a saint who has been called the “prophet of trust in God”: the French Jesuit St. Claude de la Colombière (d. 1682). He is also famous for having been the confessor who helped St. Margaret Mary Alacoque spread devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
St. Claude wrote an “Act of Confidence in God” that appears in many prayer books. To conclude, we recall its opening words: “My Lord and my God, I am so convinced that you watch over those who hope in you, and that nothing can be lacking to those who expect everything from you, that I have resolved from now on to live without any anxiety and to place all my cares in you.”
