I was discussing a certain investment with a friend some time back, and she was saying that it seemed that their investment was going through very perilous times. Their investments could collapse, causing them to lose all the money invested and accrued. Her concern caused my friend to really look at what she was feeling about this: was it hope she was experiencing in this situation, or trust? She wanted to trust.

That’s an interesting one! Isn’t it amazing how everything in life offers an ever ongoing education. She has an opportunity to be lost in the surface issue of a currently unstable investment, or to look deeper into life and attempt to define the qualities of what the situation is fostering in her. Hope or trust; how can she know the difference? If we turn to a dictionary, the definition is easy. Hope; to desire with expectation of fulfillment. To wish, to want. To have desire or expectation. Trust; a confident reliance on the integrity, honesty, or justice of another; faith. A confidence in the reliability of persons or things without careful investigation.

These are the everyday meanings, and they are well defined. This is the way most people live with hope and trust in their lives, very seldom ever considering, or caring, whether they are hoping or trusting. Mostly the issue takes control, and both hope and trust take second place to anxiety and worry. I have often spoken to deeply anxious people who have told me that they trust. When I ask them who or what they are trusting, the answer usually varies between God, Life, or the Universe.

They are wrong. They are not trusting God, Life, or the Universe. I do not doubt that they hope that God, Life, or the Universe might help them out, or perhaps fix things, but trust is not part of the equation. This is purely hope, and regretfully, hope holds hands with hopelessness. With hope you will feel despair and anxiety, while doubt will sow into your mind the seeds of fear. This, then, is hope.

Living hope-fully is not bad, neither is it wrong. It is common, the way of consensus reality. And to be sure, hope is definitely a spark of light in the shadows of any negative situation. The only problem with hope is that it keeps such depressing and negative company. When you employ hope, you have to take all its company, because, unfortunately, they all live in the same bag. Hope is also linked with wanting, and while this is not wrong, wanting is one of the children of desire. And seriously, you do not want to get too involved with desire. Desire is greedy, rapacious, and ever hungry. The more you feed desire the greater its hunger; and as the hunger of desire grows, so also grows hopelessness and doubt. Hope is not your friend, hope is a foe, illusion in disguise. Trust: far more than a word, trust is a potential way of life. Just as hope describes a way of living, so trust describes both a way of living and a way of being. While hope mixes with negative company, trust has friends who are both positive and uplifting. Trust engenders self respect and promotes courage. Trust fosters confidence in life, and is an essential ingredient in the growth of your consciousness. Consider this; you cannot trust and be anxious. Anxiety is the denial of trust. Equally, trust is the death of anxiety. Trust Holds hands with the basic Principle of Truth. When you trust, you surrender all anxiety, all doubt, all fear ... and you trust.

Imagine that you have a situation in your life that could cost you all your life’s savings. You hope that all will go well, but you experience the full spectrum of negative emotions. So let go of hope. Now take a big step forward in consciousness, and trust. The situation looks no better than before. No angels come singing down from above to tell you that all is now well. Nothing appears changed ... but it has. ‘You’ have changed. It matters not that this is a first time practice run, you are now trusting. You are an alchemist. By the nature of trust you have changed the whole energy of the situation you are/were in. Hope is so entangled with hopelessness that it can transform nothing, but trust is a pointer toward Truth. What is this particular truth? The Truth is that you created the situation you are in, and that you can change it. If you get lost in the illusions of the situation - and hope is part of the illusion - you have learned nothing, and such situations will endlessly repeat themselves.

If, however, you trust, you break through the grip of illusion. So what are you going to trust? Try trusting Truth. What is Truth? Truth is that you, Self, are a magnificent, metaphysical, multidimensional Being of Light. You trust that life is not a competition to be won, but a creative expression of which you are an integral part. You trust that life loves you and is supportive of you. You trust that the only way to bring all this supportive energy into your life is to love and trust Self.

None of this trust has anything to do with hope. Either you are trusting or you are hoping, there is no in-between. However, you can measure your trust. If you feel anxiety in your situation, then you are not trusting. If you are trusting, there is no anxiety, and no need of hope. Trust transcends hope. Hope is at best a signpost pointing to a higher potential; trust is that higher potential. There is no truer friend than trust.

In love and Light, Michael.