Confidence In God

by Raymund Tamayo

“Trust the Lord with all your heart, and don’t depend on your own understanding. Remember the Lord in all you do, and He will give you success.” – Proverbs 3:5-6

Self-confidence is one of the things we wish to teach our children. As parents, we think this virtue is necessary so they can handle life's pressures as they grow older.

A high self-esteem will allow them to enjoy life better. Low self-esteem reduces one's quality of life and could even lead to mental health issues in the long run.

DANGER IN TOO MUCH SELF-CONFIDENCE

However, over-reliance on one's self can be dangerous. So we're trying to teach them the healthy kind of self-confidence as careful as we can.

Because we know over-confidence creates two attitudes that lead to spiritual decay.

ARROGANCE & DEPRESSION

Number one is arrogance. 

Pride becomes unhealthy when we are mistakenly convinced nothing bad can happen in our own little world. It deceives us that everything is under our control. And that we can get whatever we want right at the moment we want them.

This attitude is a set up to a lot of pain, frustrations, and disappointments. 

It also leads to the second one. Depression. 

I'm not generalizing things, because as we all know there is no one reason for depression. 

But a person's (proud) attitude does contribute to depression as proud people are not able to accept life's ups and downs well. They are bad in accepting failure or defeat, which leads to self-pity.

So what kind of self-confidence is healthy?

CONFIDENCE IN GOD

The answer is a self-esteem anchored on confidence in God, our Creator. 

It is a constant acknowledgement that He is the Source of all good gifts and successes (which keeps us grounded) and that He is our Safe Refuge when times are hard (which gives us strength to persevere).

When we put our complete confidence in God, He will be faithful to direct our steps. He will put in us the right self-confidence to glorify Him in whatever it is that we do.