Do not, therefore, abandon that confidence of yours; it brings a great reward. – Hebrews 10:35
Confidence: parrhesia; freedom in speaking; unreservedness in speech, without concealment, ambiguity, circumlocution, or the use of figures and comparisons; free and fearless confidence; cheerful courage; boldness; assurance; the deportment by which one becomes conspicuous or secures publicity.
Confidence – like love – is not a feeling, even though it (and love) can be experienced with your emotions.
Confidence – like love – is an action, a verb…something you choose to do, regardless of how you feel.
Confidence is looking someone in the eye and offering a firm handshake…when the weight of the world on your shoulders makes you feel like crawling back into bed.
Confidence is picking yourself off the floor and starting again…after trying something daring that left you flat on your face.
Confidence is talking about the houses you did not build and vineyards you did not plant…when you’re living in a cardboard box, fishing food out of a dumpster.
Confidence is publicly sharing your dreams of success…when everyone around you can point to your history of repeated failure.
Let them do that, but don’t let them stop you from speaking with bold, confident assurance.
Because your confidence is not in feelings, circumstances, your bank balance, the people around you or even in your own ability.
Instead, your confidence is in the fact that you have been cast into a Story, written before you were even born. Every scene was crafted by the Alpha and Omega, the One who declares the end from the beginning. He loves you,He formed you, He is in you, and His thoughts towards you are more than the grains of sand on the sea…and each thought is one of good and not of evil.
He started the Story, He brought you into it, He is actively helping you walk through it and so your expressions of confidence are founded on the wisdom of Romans 8:31 (MSG)
So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn’t gladly and freely do for us?
Confidence is not a feeling. So no matter what your circumstances are, and regardless of the opinions of those around you, decide to be confident…and leave your feelings to catch up afterwards.