num_pages: 208
description: Our ReviewFalling Backward into GodTrust is two steps beyond faith. It is faith that gets us into position, with our backs facing unseen people ready to catch us; it is trust that allows us to fall. Brennan Manning's new book thoughtfully and movingly examines the overlooked Christian value of trust: trust in ourselves, trust in Jesus Christ, and trust in God. "It takes a heroic courage to trust in the love of God no matter what happens to us," he writes early on. Many of the anecdotes in the book -- stories of loved ones lost, of personal anguish -- show how difficult it can be to fully trust God's glorious and benevolent love, but yet how the motion to trust in the face of ample reasons for distrust is the bravest movement of the human heart.Manning relates how the ethicist John Kavanaugh went to work for a few months with Mother Theresa. Kavanaugh asked her to pray for him, to pray that he have clarity. Her response was sharp and telling: "Clarity is the last thing you are clinging to and must let go of. So I will pray that you trust God."Unfortunately, it is manifestly difficult to will trust in anyone, perhaps especially in God, who sometimes seems so remote and abstract. Manning explains that the path to trusting God comes through his son, Jesus Christ. So human, so fallible, so loving, Jesus is the link between mortals (in whose pain he shared) and divine love. Faith comes in truly recognizing Jesus as our personal savior; trust comes when we wed faith with "reliance on the promise of Jesus, accompanied by the expectations of fulfillment."But the path of true trust never did run smooth and there are tremendous obstacles to heeding this call. Manning uses many episodes from his own spiritual life to illuminate the difficulties in overcoming disbelief and trusting in God like children trust in their parents. Clearly of an advanced spiritual complexion, Manning has nevertheless had his own doubts, his fears, his complaints. His own thoughts and his reaching out to other thinkers, in all disciplines -- from Martin Buber to Thomas Aquinas to parables from India -- provide a means for us to think about our own stations of trust.Manning's book is entitled Ruthless Trust because it is the uncompromising ruthlessness of our trust in Jesus and in God through the revelations of their majesty, countering every negative and negating thought, that represents the highest aspirations of Christianity. One can do no better than to quote Manning's own words: "In 1968, on a wintry night brilliant with starshine, I stood on the edge of darkness awaiting the sunrise. The Spanish desert sands gleamed like silvered sugar. Over and over the wind whispered his name to me, 'Abba, Abba.' " That such a quiet revelation should transform itself into the beautiful deeps of trust should happen to us all. Perhaps with insights derived from this powerful book, it can.
  
  Edward Sien, a grant maker to renascent Jewish communities in Russia and Ukraine, lives in New York, where he listens to music, reads, writes all too little, and dreams.

language: English
title: Ruthless Trust: The Ragamuffin's Path to God
titlecomplete: Ruthless Trust: The Ragamuffin's Path to God
genres: Christian Non Fiction, Nonfiction, Christian, Faith, Theology, Discipleship, Christian Living, Spirituality, Christianity, Religion
ratings_count: 4321
publisher: HarperOne