For the past several months, I've been thinking a lot about trust.
 
What does it mean? What does it look like? And how do you practice it when you don't know what the end result will be?
 
Through that process, I feel like the Lord has been teaching me what it means to wait for an answer when you don't have one. What it means to hope for something to work out without knowing that it will. And perhaps most importantly, learning the difference between being patient and trying to control an outcome.
 
At the heart of all of it is one simple truth: Trust requires surrender.
 
I don't think it's much of a stretch to say most of us like having a fair amount of control over our lives. We want answers. We want certainty. We want things to happen on our timeline and in a way that makes sense to us.
 
But real trust requires relinquishing control of the things we were never in control of to begin with.
 
That doesn't mean we stop working, pushing or growing. It doesn't mean throwing our hands up and giving up responsibility. It means doing everything we can with what we've been given while recognizing that the ultimate outcome isn't ours to dictate.
 
In Matthew 10, Jesus reminds His followers that not a single sparrow falls to the ground apart from the Father's care and that the very hairs of their heads are numbered.
 
If God cares about even the smallest details of His creation, surely we can trust Him with the things weighing on our hearts.
 
Trust, however, can be a scary thing. Sometimes downright terrifying.
 
It requires vulnerability. It means opening ourselves up to the possibility of being hurt, particularly when it comes to relationships with other people. We're human. We make mistakes. No matter how much we care about someone or how hard we try to build trust, we're not always going to get everything right.
 
I pray that I'm the kind of person others can depend on. Someone they can trust with everything from the smallest things, like being on time for a meeting, to their biggest insecurities and fears.
 
Because trust isn't just about what we ask of others. It's also about what we demonstrate to them.
 
It's built through consistency. Are you the same person on Monday that you are on Saturday? At the office and at home? With your closest friends and family and with a complete stranger?
 
Trust is a response to what people display over time. It's developed through dependability, respect and the willingness to be vulnerable with one another. And while it can take a long time to build, it doesn't take much to damage it.
 
Perhaps the hardest part of trust, though, is learning to live with uncertainty.
 
I'm generally not an anxious person. I'm pretty easygoing and tend to take things as they come. But certain situations have a way of kicking the overthinking engine in my brain into hyperdrive.
 
What I've recently learned, and am still doing my best to put into practice, is that anxiety can reveal just how desperately we're trying to control something we simply cannot. We want to know why things aren't happening the way we hoped, why the timing isn't what we expected or what comes next.
 
That's where surrender becomes especially difficult.
 
It's easy to say we trust God when everything is going according to plan. It's another thing entirely when we're waiting, when the answers aren't coming and when we can't see how things will work out.
 
One of the greatest examples of faith and trust in the Bible in my opinion is the story of Abraham and Isaac in Genesis 22.
 
God had promised Abraham that he would have a son and that generations would come from his family. But Isaac didn't arrive the next day, the next month or even the next year. Abraham and Sarah waited until they were well advanced in age before that promise came to fruition.
 
And then, after all those years of waiting, God asked Abraham to sacrifice the very son through whom that promise was supposed to be fulfilled.
 
I can only imagine the anguish Abraham experienced during that three-day journey to the place of sacrifice. He knew what God had asked him to do, yet he continued forward in faith.
 
Abraham couldn't see how the situation would resolve. He didn't have the full picture. But he trusted God enough to take the next step.
 
For us, God's provision may not always look like the outcome we've spent so much time hoping and praying for. Sometimes it may look different than we imagined. Sometimes it may come with heartache, disappointment or lessons we don't fully understand in the moment.
 
But that doesn't mean the work, the faith or the trust was wasted.
 
So what does all of this have to do with football, or more specifically, Northwestern State football?
 
Every day, more than 100 players, coaches and staff members are working toward a common goal. They see the daily grind. They experience the preparation, the mistakes, the adjustments and the incremental progress that doesn't always show up on a scoreboard.
 
The climb has certainly been challenging. There is no denying that. But continuing to move forward requires a level of trust in the work, in one another and in the direction of the program.
 
Trust is one of the five pillars of the NSU football program under head coach Blaine McCorkle. Every player who suits up for the Demons has heard about both practical trust and emotional trust.
 
Practical trust is built through dependability and doing your job. It's a quarterback trusting his receiver to be where he's supposed to be, an offensive lineman trusting the player beside him to execute his assignment, or a coach trusting his players to carry out the plan.
 
Emotional trust goes deeper. It requires that vulnerability I mentioned, maturity and a willingness to let others know who you are beyond the uniform. It takes time, consistency and respect to develop.
 
Both are necessary. Neither happens overnight.
 
And while fans want to see the results of the work being put in, no one can guarantee exactly when a breakthrough will come.
 
Trust doesn't mean ignoring what's happening in front of us or abandoning accountability. It means continuing to prepare, continuing to work and continuing to hold ourselves responsible for the things we can control.
 
James 2:17 reminds us that faith without works is dead. Trust isn't an excuse to sit back and wait for something to happen. It calls us to act faithfully with what we've been given while surrendering the outcome.
 
That's the part I'm still learning.
 
I want answers. I want to know where the road leads. I want the effort I put into the things that matter to me to produce the results I hope for.
 
But trust doesn't promise that it will.
 
The value of doing the right thing isn't determined solely by whether we get the ending we imagined. We don't have to know exactly how the work will pay off to believe the work is worth doing.
 
Sometimes, the hardest part isn't figuring out what comes next. It's learning to take the next step without knowing.