The Tightrope of Confidence: A Balance Between Pride & Humility

Okay, I'll finally admit it - I have a confidence problem. But probably not in the way you think. Let me explain...

It's pretty clear that if you are a Christian with a strong faith in God, there is no way you should have low self-confidence or self-esteem. After all, here are some of the things the Bible has to say about this subject:

• Hebrews 13:6 (ESV) - So we can confidently say, "The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?"
• Philipians 4:13 (NKJV) - I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me.
• Joshua 1:9 (ESV) - Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.
• Hebrews 4:16 (NLT) - So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.

As Christians, we have the power of God available to us at all times as long as we are doing acting according to His word. There is nothing for us to fear. And we can do anything. If that knowledge and belief doesn't give you confidence, nothing will.

But we shouldn't be prideful or arrogant either. When we come out of a time of need, we usually have no problem giving thanks to God for His help. But when things have been going well for us for a while, we tend to stop giving the glory to God, and instead start attributing our success to our own abilities, intelligence, and authority or power. And while it may be true that those things are what allowed us to achieve those successes, we forget that it was God who gave them to us in the first place! This is what I have the hardest time remembering - that is until God gives me some "constructive criticism" and reminds me how weak I really am without Him. 

• Proverbs 11:2 (NLT) - Pride leads to disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom.
• Proverbs 16:16 (NIV) - Pride does before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.
• Proverbs 26:12 (NKJV) - Do you see a man wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.

The right balance of pride and humility is confidence. Romans 12:3 (NKJV) says "For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith." 

The way we think about humility nowadays is closer to weakness or spineless. That is why I'm using the word "confident" in describing what I believe we should be in our daily lives.

We should be confident in our skills, abilities, intelligence, and especially in our faith in God. Now it is also true that we each have a different level of faith, and our expectations of what we can do should be appropriate to the amount of faith we have. Any more and we're being too confident - leading to arrogance. Any less and we're not being confident enough - leading to spinelessness or laziness. It's a tightrope we all walk every day. Once you understand this though, you can start working on your balance. 

Unanswered Prayers

Chances are that if you've prayed more than once in the past, you probably feel like you've had some unanswered prayers - I know I used to think that! But I've recently realized that there is no such thing as an unanswered prayer (when you are a Christian anyway).

I would like to challenge you to think a little more deeply about prayers that you feel are still unanswered. God always answers your prayers - all of them. And it's great when you get to see the answer first hand! When you receive unexpected money to pay your bills, or something else happens to solve a problem you have after you've prayed about it, it makes you happy and further solidifies the belief that God is good. But when we don't see the answer to our prayers that we can become disheartened.

This is when it's important to remember that it's not because God didn't answer your prayer, He simply didn't answer it the way you expected. There are more possible answers to prayers than you could possibly think of, but some of the possibilities you should think about are:

• The answer is to be patient because it's not the right time yet for things to change.
• The answer is something you perceive as negative in the moment, but will later realize that it was the best thing that could have happened to you.
• And definitely more often than we'd like: the answer is "no."

These are just as much answers to prayers as are miracles. Part of the reason we don't always get our prayers answered like we want them to be is because we're asking for the wrong things. Who are we to say what the answer to our prayers should be? Do we really know what's best for us? Most of us would like to think we do, but I bet that if we got everything we wanted, we would end up a miserable mess. Who better than God to decide what the best possible answer to our prayers should be? So why do we keep asking Him for what we think we want, instead of asking Him for the ability to discern His will and accept it as being the best possible thing that could happen, even if we don't yet understand why that is so?

And unfortunately for us, there are probably even prayers that will go seemingly unanswered for our whole lives. It may just be that some of our prayers won't be answered until after we've already passed away. But I'm willing to bet that when things like that happen, we will still be able to see our prayers get answered while we're up in Heaven. And I think we'll be rewarded for remaining faithful even when we don't like God's answer, or don't understand it.

All prayers are answered. And they are answered with the best answer possible - whether it's immediate or lifetimes away, whether we understand it or not, and even when the answer is "no."