Ruthless Trust examines the major obstacle to living in unconditional love and grace, our inability to trust God. Manning writes, “Unwavering trust is a rare and precious thing because it often demands a degree of courage that borders on the heroic.” Trust is the only way to live unfettered by the guilt of the past or anxiety for the future. Trust makes us live fully in the present, the only place where we can experience God.
Manning argues Trust is our gift back to God, and he finds it so enchanting that Jesus died for love of it. That the splendor of a human heart that trusts and is loved unconditionally gives God more pleasure than Westminster Cathedral, the Sistine Chapel, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, the sight of 10,000 butterflies in flight, or the scent of a million orchids in bloom.