How Do I Learn to Fully Trust God?

Having a regular prayer life is essential, so that you will be better attentive to God’s guidance in your life. As part of this, frequent reception of the sacraments is highly recommended, so that we can know our Lord Jesus Christ better, and that our will can be ever more closely conformed to his. In this regard, prayer before our Eucharistic Lord is strongly recommended. Also, a spiritual director can be helpful. And even if we don’t have a spiritual director per se, we should receive the Sacrament of Reconciliation on a regular basis (monthly) and, if possible, from the same priest confessor.

Finally, radical childlike trust in Jesus is crucial. Jesus challenges us to trust him and carry our cross daily (see Matthew 7:13-14; 5:43-48), assuring us that we will not trust him in vain (see John 8:31-32; 14:6). So we need to die to our own desires and trust that God has what’s best for us, as our Lord conveys:

Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man, if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life? Or what shall a man give in return for his life?(Matthew 16:24-26).

The failure to die to themselves and trust in God led to Adam and Eve’s original sin. It’s at the root of all sin in way or another. Sometimes in seeking God’s will for our lives we are brought low, so that we can learn to be more trusting of God (see 2 Cor. 12:8-10; Rom. 8:28). Here we’re reminded that being childlike (radically trusting) and not childish (immature and self-centered) is at the heart of being God’s faithful disciple (see Mt. 19:14; Lk. 18:16).

So humility is crucial in this whole process, trusting that God will truly fulfill us both personally and professionally. Easier said than done, of course, but Jesus is there to help us gain a fruitful self-death (Phil. 4:13) and so give us his incomparable peace in the process (Jn. 14:27).