In God We Trust: Why This Motto Still Matters Today

In God We Trust is literally staring at me right now from the crumpled five-dollar bill sticking out of my Carhartt pocket, and honestly? I still don’t know how to feel about it some days.

I’m sitting on the tailgate of my truck in a Walmart parking lot in north Georgia, boots covered in red clay, sipping a gas-station sweet tea that’s 90% sugar, and yeah, that phrase keeps popping up everywhere—on the money, on the cop car that just cruised by, on the bumper sticker of the dude revving his lifted Silverado next to me. And every single time it feels like the universe is side-eyeing me going, “So… you good, bro?”https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/in-god-we-trust/

Why In God We Trust Still Makes Me Tear Up in Public (Yeah, It Happened)

Last Tuesday I was in the Ingles checkout line—don’t judge, their fried chicken is elite—and the cashier was this sweet older Black lady who looked like she’d seen some stuff. She handed me change, a sweaty quarter, and when I glanced down at “In God We Trust” I just… lost it. Like ugly-sniffle, trying-to-hide-it-behind-my-sunglasses lost it. She didn’t say anything, just slid me an extra napkin like she already knew.

Because two weeks before that my little brother shipped out for his third tour and honestly the only thing I could choke out when we hugged goodbye was “In God We Trust, man. Like for real.” And he laughed, because we’re not church people, we’re the “pray in the deer stand when nobody’s looking” type. But it’s the only thing that felt big enough in that moment.

The Time I Almost Got in a Fistfight Over In God We Trust

True story: summer of 2023, some dude at a bonfire started going off about how the national motto is “fascist Christian nationalism” or whatever. I was three beers and zero sleep deep, so yeah, I popped off. Told him if he hated it so much he could Venmo me gas money every time he used cash with those words on it.https://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/object/nmah_1099408

We didn’t actually swing, thank God (pun intended), but I still think about how fast I got heated. Like why does this one little phrase make me feral? Probably because when everything else—politics, jobs, health insurance, the absolute clown show on X—feels like it’s circling the drain, In God We Trust is the last scrap of “maybe we’re not totally doomed” I’ve got left.

Random Places In God We Trust Has Wrecked Me Lately

• The bottom of my divorce papers (Georgia still prints it on everything, even the sad stuff)
• Etched on the dog tags my buddy mailed me after he didn’t come home
• Spray-painted on an overpass outside Atlanta right next to “GO BRAVES” like it’s just normal

Look, I’m Not Saying It Fixes Anything

Half the time I’m screaming at the sky like everyone else. I’ve cussed God out in rush-hour traffic on I-75 more times than I’ve prayed nicely. But then I fish a dime out of the cupholder and there it is again—In God We Trust—like a quiet “hey, I’m still here.” And for five seconds I breathe.https://www.eisenhowerlibrary.gov/research/online-documents/god-we-trust

That’s all it’s ever been for me: not a political statement, not a theology degree, just a tiny reminder that maybe the story isn’t over yet.

So yeah, keep it on the money. Keep it on the patrol cars. Keep it on the battered bumper stickers held together by hope and clear tape. Because some of us are hanging on by that thread.

What about you? When’s the last time those four words hit you sideways? Drop it in the comments—I read every single one while stress-eating Chick-fil-A sauce at 2 a.m., no judgment.

In God We Trust, y’all. Still. Somehow.