Confidence can be exhibited at many levels. The sports star that led the league in a number of categories last year, received a contract extension, and is injury free. The business person who has a company that is doing quite well and their family is healthy and happy. The student who is liked by most and is receiving good marks. The married couple who have had a great marriage for years.
All those are possible areas of confidence. However, what happens when you take something away from the situation? The sports star suffers a rare disease and has to have his leg amputated. The business person has to close their doors due to a recession. The student who is hit by a car and has to go through therapy to even learn how to remember again. The married couple, where one spouse learns they have a tumor, so advanced, only weeks to live.
Where is the confidence in these situations, after these things have happened?
Confidence was higher in the first paragraph because each of those scenarios were about what the person did. None of it had to do with putting their confidence in God. It was their successes. Their situations.
When we fail to put our confidence in Him, any other confidence is empty. Yesterday, we continued to talk about the idea of living wide awake. To live wide awake, for God, means that we also must put our confidence in Him, as He leads us through life. Here are some applications to choose from to use this week...
- Appreciate the opportunities that come your way as ways to reflect Jesus to someone or some situation.
- Tell someone how much you enjoy being a Christian
- Reflect on the strengths you have and not the weaknesses
- See that you are incompetent without Him - acknowledge and accept
- Do not look at situations that come your way as obstacles in reflecting your faith, but as opportunities.
- Pray for opportunities for those you teach and their parents, those you work with and their families, for your customers, for your neighbors, for your household (if someone in your household doesn't know Christ), for ____ (you add anyone else)
- Look forward, with confidence from Him, to these opportunities to open up!
Waking up each day and looking forward to how God will use you is a little bit of what it means to live wide awake. If you are still going through your day, figuratively, under the covers, WAKE UP...get out of bed. There is whole world of opportunity out there waiting for you to be a "fragrance" of Christ to them!
If you're guilty of putting confidence in yourself, then you need to change it around. Change it so that you are appreciative of the talents you have, but understand that if something happened your confidence would not diminish because you already started putting your confidence in Him, not you.
I love the kind of mindset that looks for seeing how one can reflect Christ in everything they do and everywhere they go. I like to learn people's names, so that when I see them, then I can call them by name or ask, by name, how their day is going. This seems to be especially effective to those who have the "thankless" or menial jobs. Sometimes I will leave a note of appreciation for a maid in a hotel, that is one example of a thankless job.
Reflect Jesus with confidence!
Looking forward to the opportunities that will come my way...
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