One of the things I’m teaching people in the business world is that fear comes from a lack of knowledge. We are often afraid of those things we don’t understand or have little knowledge about. When our knowledge is low, so is our confidence. When our confidence is low, our fear goes up. That fear causes our demeanor to change and then our actions reflect it. We begin to act out of fear than out of a confident faith.
To act out of confidence, we need to increase our faith. There are a couple of times in scripture that I can think of off the top of my head that tell us about that. The first was in Mark 9:23-25 when a father brought his son to Jesus for help. He told Jesus, “Have mercy on him if you can.” Jesus said, “What do you mean, ‘If I can?’ Anything is possible if a person believes.” The father replied, “Lord I believe, but help my unbelief.”
When is the last time we’ve prayed that prayer? I believe God honors prayers that grow our faith. Some people are afraid to pray a prayer like that because they think it’s like asking God to help you be more patient: you’ll get a lot of opportunities to grow it! God always desires that our faith and trust in Him will increase.
Another instance that talks about growing our faith comes from Romans 10:17. That says, “Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.” Are we taking time each day to fill our hearts and minds with the Word of God. I don’t mean just reading a chapter to check off a box. I mean really getting into God’s Word and reading it to search for Him and what He says to us personally through it.
Jeremiah 17:7 says, “Blessed are those who trust in The Lord and have made The Lord their hope and confidence.” You may not have much confidence on your own, but you can have it in God. You can have a boldness like you’ve never had before in Christ. It comes when you’ve learned to trust Him. That trust is learned when you’ve done all you can do in a situation and finally say, “God, I can’t do it. I need your help.”
I think that sometimes God sits back and waits on us to get to that point before He steps in. He needs us to understand that we weren’t made to do everything on our own. If we could, there would be no need for faith. Our confidence would be in ourselves and not in Him. That’s not what God desires. He told Paul in II Corinthians 12:9, “My strength and power are made perfect and show themselves most effective in your weakness.”
It’s in our weakness that we begin to allow our faith, trust and confidence in God arise. It’s not so He can have an ego boost. It’s so we can learn dependence on Him in our lives. It’s so we can have confidence in Him and His ability to supply our needs. It’s so when an impossible situation arises, we don’t have to ask Him if He can, we will know that He can. You can act out of a confident faith rather than fear today.
Devotions by Chris Hendrix 