It’s relatively easy to say you’ll trust in the Lord.

It’s another thing entirely to wholeheartedly commit to it.

Recently, I took the Gospel according to Saint Luke to prayer and realized: I haven’t been fully entrusting all of my thoughts, words, and deeds to Our Lord.

The scripture is as follows: 

“…he said to Simon,

“Put out into deep water and lower your nets for a catch.”

Simon said in reply,

“Master, we have worked hard all night and have caught nothing,

but at your command I will lower the nets.”

When they had done this, they caught a great number of fish

and their nets were tearing” (Luke 5:4-6).

Seems simple enough, right?

Jesus asks Simon Peter to cast his nets one more time. Simon Peter obeys . . . and hey presto–a boatload of fish!

But after reflecting deeper upon this Gospel passage, I realized I’m not anywhere close to trusting Our Lord like Peter does in this story. 

trusting God is A Lifelong Quest

If after a long, sleepless night of caring for my seven-month-old baby (comparable work to casting nets again and again all night long in my opinion!) a stranger said to me: just try to put her to sleep one more time…I think I would go ballistic.

“What makes you think this time will be any different?” I’d argue.

“Who even are you, and why should I listen to you?”

I wager many Christians would respond with a similar knee-jerk reaction.

And this is exactly why Luke included this story in his Gospel account.

In order to share the Good News with people who see Jesus as a stranger, we must first be completely and utterly obedient to His will.

We must be actively asking Him what to do and heeding His commandments.

And–most critically–we must let go of our self-reliant tendencies and trust Him to light our path.

Only once we give all of our thoughts and what we say and our daily struggles up to God will our lives bear good fruit– our nets will bring up a bounty of fish.

Priests often mention that the Church requests our time, treasures, and talents. These are absolutely important to the flourishing of community and the Church!

I propose we emphasize a fourth ‘T’ more often: trust.

List of Ways To Start Trusting God

The fastest way to start trusting God is to ask him to grace you with faith. Not everyone is predisposed to believe in the goodness of Our Lord.

In fact, in this cynical day and age I’d bet many of us don’t place our faith in much at all. Our politicians are corrupt. Our medical system is a money pit. Heck–even those Catholic priests God ordained to shepherd us in his stead are continually sinning.

Don’t let this get you down, though. Trust in God doesn’t require perfection on your part (and definitely not from the rest of the world!)

It simply requires faith.

Once you’ve asked God for the gift of faithfulness, pray to him often.

Chat with him in the car on the way to work.

Praise him for delicious donuts after the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and for achievements at work.

Glorify him by your works and by using the talents he has given you.

Frequent the sacraments (through which we are filled with the Holy Spirit).

Placing your trust in God is not a solo affair. We need him to soften our hearts. For some, faith will come in the darkest time of their life. For others, they are graced with faith from a young age.

Regardless of how you come to trust in the Lord, I pray that you never lose the faith.

Godspeed!