Is trust the same as faith?

There is a big difference between trust and faith. Trust is earned, faith is not. You know somebody for many years and they don’t do anything to lose your trust; so they have earned it. Faith is not earned; it simply is!

Let’s begin with the question: What is faith? It is the knowing that everything is perfect the way it is. For example, you don’t look at your child and say that I have the confidence that you are my child. You know it. That certainty is the difference between trust and faith.

Let’s say that you are going for a job interview. You have the faith that you are perfect for this job. However, if things don’t work out and you don’t get the job, then your faith tells you that it wasn’t meant to work and you are meant to find something better. That is faith: not when things work but whether they work or not, it is the best for you.

That doesn’t mean that you surrender to the will of the Universe. Because the word ‘surrender’ has a negative ring to it. Faith is the understanding that whatever happens to you is the absolute best; it is nothing but perfection. At times you can’t see the perfection yet your faith will tell you that there is good in whatever is happening.

Faith is a teacher that teaches you to become complete. It is not a crutch; rather, it is a stepping stone, a pathway to becoming complete. We are born complete but we don’t realize it. As we grow up, our conditioning and education teach us that we need to have faith in our mental self and not the spirit self. So we drift away from being complete. Faith brings us back to that space where we begin to resonate with the universal consciousness.