In the book “One Word That Will Change Your Life,” authors Jon Gordon, Dan Britton, and Jimmy Page promote the strategy of choosing one word that becomes the focus of a person’s year instead of creating a bunch of wordy resolutions that we’ll forget by the end of January. My friend Lanna is dedicated to discovering a word of the year that frames her mindset for the upcoming year. So, when I decided that the youth group should engage in this one-word project, I asked Lanna to lead the discussion. She agreed and then asked, “what’s your word?” I hadn’t picked a word at that point even though the new year had already started, but now I needed to go through the process of finding my word if I was asking the youth to do the same. I read the above-mentioned book – the copy that Lanna gave me last year – and set out to find my word. 

I admit I was a bit skeptical because while I’d picked words in some years past, I hadn’t gone through the process of looking in, looking up, and looking out described in the book. The authors noted that sometimes the word will come to you quickly and at other times the word reveals itself with a bit of time. I thought my word would emerge gently and slowly. But suddenly, the word “trust” came to me like a bolt of lightning. My next thought was no thank you. 

I didn’t want trust to be my word because I have some trust issues. Whenever I see a tv show or movie in which one character asks another, “do you trust me?” my automatic thought is no. Obviously the question is not intended for me, the viewer, but no is what I think. On the Enneagram personality type, I’m a six. After the word trust came to mind, I saw a social media post by an Enneagram expert (@enneagramexplained) that had each of the nine types’ responses to “Driving in the Snow.” When confronted with driving in the snow, a type six says, “Nope, I either don’t trust myself or I don’t trust everyone else!”  Another Enneagram social media post (enneagramwithhjb) says sixes are “looking for someone they can trust.” We sixes are loyal once we trust someone. It’s just hard for us to get there. I don’t trust the process or the journey easily. I don’t trust myself, and I struggle to trust God too. 

To me, trust implies lack of control and that scares me. But when I looked up the definition of trust, I read “assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something” (merriam-webster.com). Trust isn’t based on blind faith but built on a strong foundation that I already have with someone or something. I don’t have to trust everyone (not that that would ever happen), and if I have trusted someone, I can change my mind if they prove themselves untrustworthy. I can trust myself more than I have in the past because I know how much time and effort I put into making decisions. I can trust God more because I can rely on God’s character.    

Perhaps instead of letting the word trust terrify me, I can view it as becoming more content with who and where I am. Now that I have my word, I’ll spend this year learning about trust and about myself in the process. Trust me.