Godly Confidence
Confidence is a life of proving, while godly confidence produces a life of proof.
The journey toward confidence can feel like an uphill climb. The mountainside is a steep dirt slope. As you gain a few feet of forward progress, you slide back a bit each time against the shifting rocks and crumbling terrain. In the real world, the mountainside is your job and the rocks are those disheartening situations that make you feel like an under-performer. Maybe it’s those habits you can’t form (or the bad habits you can’t seem to break). Perhaps it’s the approval you crave and never get, or the social acceptance you dream of but never obtain.
As you reflect on the mountain that obstructs your confidence, realize that the mountain is not insurmountable. In fact, it is a mountain out of place. Confidence is unobtainable when we seek it by the world’s standards. But, there is such a thing as godly confidence. Confidence and godly confidence are two totally different things. Confidence is based on what I can do, prove, or earn. Godly confidence is based on faith - faith in who God is and in the identity He gives each of us. Godly confidence is reliance on His power, love, and purpose. Confidence is a life a proving, while godly confidence produces a life of proof.
What does godly confidence look like? It shows up as P.R.O.O.F.
P - Power
Godly confidence empowers us to live out a supernatural identity given to us by Christ. When the flesh feels defeated by trying to feel confident in our own strength (i.e. efforts, striving, independent self-improvement attempts), godly confidence releases us to rest in God’s plan. It empowers us to step into the names and purposes that God speaks over us. At our weakest is when the complete power of God becomes fully unlocked (read II Corinthians 12:9-10). When the DIY confidence we try to construct out of our earthly positions, titles, income, relationships, schemes, or any other natural thing comes crumbling down, I invite you to turn to the power of godly confidence which has its source in One who never runs out. Godly confidence does not absolve us from personal agency. Rather, it allows us to partner with the power of God to live from a place of overflow, not earning. Grace, not gritted teeth. Eternally minded, not eternally striving. Lack of confidence can leave us feeling powerless and alone. Godly confidence supplies the opposite through a feeling of security, knowing that God has a beautiful identity for each one of us and that we can walk in that identity with power and peace. Godly confidence empowers us to be all that God wants us to be because it aligns with God’s plan, not the world’s.
R - Riches
I always struggled with the idea that God wants to bless me. Now, I fully believe that God wants to give me a rich and satisfying life as I seek Him (John 10:10). I believe that a truly rich and satisfying life is marked by an overflow of the fruit of the Spirit. It’s like a daily walk through a garden, complete with deep, rich, well-watered soil, an orchard with shiny round oranges, sun-soaked trees, and fragrant blooms. Jesus says, “I am the vine, you are the branches” (John 15:5). Godly confidence connects us to God as we seek His Spirit’s work in and through us. Let the Holy Spirit garden your life and watch the rich ecosystem of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control that results. Godly confidence focuses on what God through the Spirit produces as we live from Him, for Him, and with Him. We don’t have to prove ourselves when living from a place of godly confidence because the fruit speaks for itself.
O - Obedience
Did you know that it is disobedient to not believe what God says about you? It is rebellious to call ourselves ugly when God calls us beautiful, loser when God calls us more than a conquerer, unworthy when God calls us worth dying for. Godly confidence flows from obedience to the Word of God, which calls you and me fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139), chosen (I Peter 2:9), healed (Isaiah 53:5), anointed (Psalm 23), forgiven (I John 1:9), and so much more. Godly confidence obeys the voice of God when our inner voices make us feel inferior and the outer world treats us like a nobody. Are we obeying God’s voice or another’s? Let’s believe what God says about us by walking according to the identity He has given us in His Word.
O - Openness
Godly confidence requires faith that God is who He says he is. Do we know and trust God enough to know that not every battle is ours to fight? Do we know that we can open our hands and set down our weapon, our plan, our pride, and our idols and trust that God is better and has better in store for us than what is currently in our hands? Are we holding on to something that provides a sense of false confidence - a job title, financial status, relationship, behavior, association, appearance, characteristic, or personality trait? Can we open our hands and surrender whatever it is we’re holding, placing our confidence in God not the things of this world? Godly confidence opens our eyes to the heart of God. It opens us up to the lessons of God. We begin to see difficulties as opportunities to grow in Christlikeness, not as attacks on our personhood. We begin to see things are happening for us, not to us. Power and openness pull us out of victimhood. What is God teaching us through the struggle? Are we open to everything He has for us, says about us, and calls us to? Godly confidence can take us to new places as we begin to desire God’s direction over our own. We let go of pride as we realize that we don’t need a certain job, degree, skin color, or body size to inhabit the plan of God for our individual lives. Are we open to the road that godly confidence carves out?
F - Freedom
John 8:36 tells us that who the Son sets free is free indeed. Through godly confidence, we are free to be who God designed us to be. We are no longer bound to perfectionism, worldly success, societal standards of beauty, or conventional popularity. Godly confidence yields popularity in heaven! As we live for God and bring others into relationship with Him, we build a crowd for Christ that we get to rejoice with in heaven! Earthly popularity seems meaningless in comparison. Godly confidence frees us from the need for the world’s applause. God offers a love that is based on what He earned while hanging on the cross, not on anything you or I earned. Live from that free gift.
Take a deep breath. As you step into a new day, new week, or new situation, I pray you’d experience the deep and fulfilling presence of God. I pray that you would choose the abundant gift of godly confidence and become living P.R.O.O.F. You are loved by a God who supplies all your needs richly, even in the realm of confidence. Seek the confidence that is found in Him.
XO Elise Chanelle