Right now I’m reading Ruthless Trust by Brennan Manning. I read his Ragamuffin Gospel years ago and loved it. I love what he says here about the heroic nature of trust.

Unwavering trust is a rare and precious thing because it often demands a degree of courage that borders on the heroic. When the shadow of Jesus’ cross falls across our lives in the form of failure, rejection, abandonment, betrayal, unemployment, loneliness, depression, the loss of a loved one; when we are deaf to everything but the shriek of our own pain; when the world around us suddenly seems a hostile, menacing place — at those times we may cry out in anguish, “How could a loving God permit this to happen?” At such moments the seeds of distrust are sown. It requires heroic courage to trust in the love of God no matter what happens to us.

Trust is our gift back to God, and he finds it so enchanting that Jesus died for love of it.