A Sunday Thought~God Confidence vs. Self Confidence

Learning the difference between God’s-Confidence vs Self-Confidence this week has really opened my eyes and my soul.

This week Cody and I have been talking about the difference in God-confidence and our self-confidence. It has been so good for me that I decided to share my thoughts with you all.

You see, I have been running my days on self confidence and I have decided that I am going to start running my days on God’s confidence.

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.  Ephesians 2:10

So what is the difference?  How can we adjust ourselves?

Self Confidence is how we believe in ourselves and our abilities, it is basically how we think and feel about ourselves.  As I write this I find myself worrying about what others will say, or what they will think. Whenever I lack self-confidence like this, or become overly self-conscious, I freeze up. I’m afraid I’m not clever enough or interesting, and you won’t keep reading my post. This really is something that I work on everyday with my blog posts. I know that I am not the only one that experiences this paralyzing self-consciousness. Right?

This is how I see it, the root of our problem is FEAR. Fear of rejection, fear of loosing, fear of looking dumb, fear of what others think, fear of what other people think or fear about how other people feel about us. These fears cause us all to hesitate and not put ourselves out there.

But….

What about pride? Sometimes we are driven by pride, we become determined to prove ourselves to those around us. Right? This activity can cause us to accomplish a lot, but in the end the result is more about us and way less about God. Pride can be the cause of our low self image and that feeling bad for ourselves. Here’s an example:

When we can’t do something as well as we’d like, our pride can’t bear the thought of our “losing” or “not measuring up.” So we mope about our shortcomings and failures, and stop trying.

Sound familiar. O ya, I have found myself doing the above.

Well the good news is that we can change our focus. We can move from being so self-conscious (like worrying about what others might be thinking of us) to being more God-conscious (like focusing on what God wants in our lives and let him work on our imperfect morals to help those around us).

Discussing this with Cody, we decided that we are going to work on being more God confident. We made a list of our thoughts:

1. When we are more God Confident, we can base our self-image on what God thinks of us. We know that God loves us, that he values us, that he will forgive us and that we have a purpose in life. What really matters is what God can do though our lives.
2.  We need to ask God EVERYDAY to help us serve him in his purpose(s). God has a plan for each of us. We want to make sure that we are following that.
3.  We are going to quit procrastinating. (THIS ONE IS GOING TO BE HARD FOR ME.) We know that we have important work to do before he comes again. We want to make sure that we are ready.
4. We need to be grateful for all we have and we need to offer our thanks to him everyday.
5. We decided to make an EVERYDAY conscious decision to trust that God will do good things through us. We know that having God confidence in ourselves will help those around us.

In the end, focusing on our selves will either keep us from getting to the work that God has planned for us to do, or will distract our motivation and messages by bringing glory to ourselves instead of God. If we focus on the one in the clouds, our confidence will soar and will motivate us to get the work that God has for each of us to do today.

Thanks for letting me share our thoughts today with you all. This is definitely something that I need to work on each and every day. I need more confidence in God’s work within myself. I get so tangled up in myself that it causes me to have anxiety and fear.

Today, will you make a stand with me?

Together let’s let our God-Confidence SHINE.

Happy Monday, Friends!!