All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen. Ralph Waldo Emerson

Except from One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are:

Stress is a joy stealer. It stands in direct opposition to what Jesus directly, tenderly commands: "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me." (John 14:1) I know an untroubled heart relaxes, trusts, leans assured into His ever-dependable arms. Trust, it's the antithesis of stress. "Oh the joys of those who trust the Lord" (Psalm 40:4). But how to learn to trust like that? Can trust be conjured up simply by sheer will, on command? I've got to get this thing, what it means to trust, to gut-believe in the good touch of God toward me, because it's true: I can't fill with joy until I learn how to trust: "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow (Romans 15:13). The full life, the one spilling joy and peace, happens only as I come to trust the caress of the Lover, Lover who never burdens His children with shame or self-condemnation but keeps stroking the fears with gentle grace.

How can I trust when a troubled, joy-shriveled heart has pumped fear through the stiff veins of all my years?

If I believe, then I must let go and trust. Why do I stress? Belief in God has to be more than mental assent, more than a cliched exercise in cognition. Even the demons believe (James 2:19). What is saving belief if it isn't the radical dare to wholly trust? I read in one of the thick commentaries, that the word pisteuo is used two hundred twenty two (222) time is the New Testament, most often translated as "belief." But it changes everything when I read that pisteuo ultimately means "to put one's faith in; to trust." Belief is a verb, something that you do. Then the truth is that authentic, saving belief must be also? The very real, every day action of trusting.

Then a true saving faith is a faith that gives thanks, a faith that sees God, a faith that deeply trusts?

I read in the Amplified Bible on an afternoon while young hands work scales up and down the piano keys, "Jesus replied, 'This is the work (service) that God asks of you: that you believe in the One Whom He has sent [that you cleave to, trust, rely on, and have faith in His Messenger] (John 6:26). That's my daily work, the work God asks of me? To Trust. The work I shirk. To trust in the Son, to trust in the wisdom of this moment, to trust in now. And trust is that: work. The work of trusting love. Intentional and focused. Sometimes, too often, I don't want to muster the energy. Stress and anxiety seem easier. Easier to let a mind run wild with the worry than to exercise discipline, to reign her in, slip the blinders on and train her to walk steady in certain assurance, not spooked by the spectors looming ahead. Are stress and worry evidences of a soul too lazy, too undisciplined, to keep gaze fixed on God? To stay in love? I don't like to ask these questions, sweep out these corners where eyes glare from shadows. But this I must ask and I do, out loud, to the C-scale being played with certainty: Isn't joy worth the effort to trust?

Because I kid no one: stress brings no joy.

Isaiah 9:2

The people walking in darkness have seen a great light;

On those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.