Trusting Radically

Written By Marcus Borg

Faith as radical trust in God, not trust in statements about God, but trust in God. We perhaps see the meaning of this notion of faith most clearly by going immediately to its opposite.

The opposite of faith as trust is, of course, mistrust. But more interestingly and provocatively, the opposite of faith as trust is anxiety. And so the measure of how much faith as trust there is in your life is how much anxiety there is in your life. I mention that not so you have yet one more thing with which to beat up upon yourselves, but because faith as trust casts out anxiety, and who of us would not want the anxiety-free life? ...

Growth in trust, in radical trust in God, is radical trust in the One in whom we live and move and have our being. Put in quite secular language, radical trust is what can free us from that self-preoccupation and anxiety that mars our lives and confines our lives. It frees us for that self-forgetfulness of faith, for that willingness to live our lives in a way that is spent in the name of a larger vision, that willingness to spend and be spent. That's what comes out of faith as trust.

—excerpted from "What is Faith?" by Marcus Borg