Confidence in my Confidant

What gives us confidence? Is it our personalities? Our upbringing? Our accomplishments? And what erodes confidence? I'm thinking about these things today. My confidence is worn thin and I'm taking a look inside.

This past week has been a tough one. Car trouble and related expenses, medical issues, and the return of the heat, have piled on stress. With schools still closed, continued distance learning obstacles have also taken a toll on our family. As confident as I was to have followed the call here, I'm not confident about where I am now or about what's ahead.

Philippians 1:6

...being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

Having done a quick word search for "confident" in the Bible, I noticed it only appears once, in the verse above. Confidence here is not dependent on Paul's abilities, or the Philippian church's piety or righteousness. It is confidence in God; that He is good, He is able and He won't abandon the work He's started.

When my confidence falters, I have someone who I can confide in, who I can turn to. By turning in His direction, I take my focus off myself and off my doubts. God is a confidant I can trust to never shame or expose my vulnerabilities to others, to never leave me or forsake me. My worth and my future are fixed in Him, not my own capabilities, achievements or effort.

Being here is hard. Living in limbo is hard. None of it is what I had planned, none of it is following my timeline. My confidence can't be stable if it's based on what I can do; it needs to be based on the Unwavering One. The One who sees it all, from beginning to end, and who will complete His work in His time.

It's Com(placated)

In my conversation prayers with God I realize I need placating. To placate is to make someone less hostile or angry. I need that. I need soothing. I need a breather. Do you?

I turn to entertainment for distraction, compartmentalizing my dissatisfaction. But when I pivot back to the issues at hand, there it is, ready to be picked up again. I'm frustrated with being stuck at home. I'm disappointed in the slow pace of establishing ourselves here. I'm sad and isolated, bored and lonely and if I dwell in that, I get angry.

Most of the time I'm able to pray, worship, talk to a friend or otherwise soothe myself off the edge. But some days I'm just spitting mad; like sitting in a traffic jam fuming at my lack of progress. I want to slam my fist against the wheel and scream. I need placating. I need to be held.

I'm not the only one experiencing this underlying hostility. It seems to be seeping out of people in online chats, angry confrontations and broken marriages. We're stuck, we feel powerless and angry about it.

Sure, there are ways to make it about others, to blame circumstances and hope that by changing our situation, we'll quell the rage within. I can walk out of the house right now and find something to do, something to scratch the itch I'm feeling. Distraction is always a welcome relief, but it isn't a cure.

As an American I'm not used to sitting in discomfort. I'm not comfortable with being uncomfortable. This past year has been an exercise in reacquainting myself with discomfort. The heat, the bugs, humidity, loud neighbors, mud, bad mattresses, bad roads, all remind me of how comfortable I've been for so long.

Because of this, God tends to use discomfort to teach me about myself and about Himself. Discomfort and pain show us that something isn't quite right and that thing is poking or prodding us towards change. The challenge is to feel the discomfort and resolve to change myself, instead of the circumstances around me.

James 1:3-4

...because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

Will I persevere? Will I sit in discomfort and do the inner work that needs to be done? Will I let lockdowns and unemployment build rage in me? Or will I let God mature me through it? I want to come out of this season stronger, wiser and more useful than ever. I don't want a season of feeling unproductive to redefine who I am. The good work of growth and maturity isn't a quick and easy fix; it's complicated.

Sticks & Stones

I'm reading in the book of Numbers right now and, I'll be honest, it's not my fave. Written in Numbers is the account of how the Israelites came to have such a formidable set of laws for living and worship. If someone sins, stone them. If someone is unclean, kick them out of the camp. These laws provide a picture of rigid, mandated holiness, not a picture of grace.

I think about the story in the New Testament where a woman was caught in the act of adultery and the townspeople were preparing to stone her. For a long time I envisioned an out-of-control mob taking matters into their own hands; vigilantes bent on exacting punishment. It took awhile for me to catch-on that they were doing what was expected of them in order to be righteous (right with God). They weren't out of control at all, they were doing their best to obey God's commands.

What's crazy is that Jesus stepped into that scene and stopped them all in their tracks. Knowing the law, He stopped them. Knowing her sin, He stopped them. Knowing His Father, He stopped them.

John 8:7

When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”

You see, that ancient law was a tool to show the futility of trying to merit God's love. It showed the Israelites the many millions of ways they couldn't measure up. Trim your beard? Unclean. On your period? Unclean. Someone died? Unclean. Ate some shrimp? Unclean. The list goes on and on. The law could never save. Instead it made abundantly clear their (and our) need for a Savior.

Back to the story, no one in the crowd could throw a stone that day. Those God-fearing people knew their law and were ready to defend it to the death. And, in knowing their law, they also knew that they too were unclean.

What issues get you up-in-arms, ready to pick up a stone and defend the law? Is your defense of holiness a crushing weight to someone else? What right do you have to throw a stone? Jesus, the only one who could ever claim perfection, chose mercy over judgement, grace over retribution. He chose to die on two sticks, rather than casting a single stone.