Classic Case of Confidence

"Just as under-confidence comes with its list of symptoms, the same is true of confidence. A confident person feels safe. She believes [they are] loved, valuable, cared for, and safe in God's will for [them]. When we feel safe and secure, it's easy to step out and try new things. During the intial construction on the Golden Gate Bridge, no safety devices were used and twenty-three men fell to their deaths. For the final part of the project, however, a large net was used as a safety precaution. At least then men fell into it and were saved from certain death. Even more interesting, however, is the fact that 25% more work was accomplished after the net was installed. Why? Because the men had the assurance of their safety, and they were free to wholeheartedly serve the project.

When people feel safe, they are free to take a chance on failing in order to try to succeed. When we know we are loved for ourselves and not just our accomplishments or performance. we no longer need to fear failure. We realize that failing at something does not make us a failure at everything. We are free to explore and find out what we are best suited for. We are free to find our own niche in life, which is not possible without stepping out and finding out. Trial and error is the road to success, and you can't drive that road as long as your car is parked. So get moving, and God will direct you. When people are confident, they try things, and they keep trying until they find a way to be a successful in what God has called them to do.

Sure, life can sometimes make us feel like we're in over our heads, but the reality is that, without God, we're always in over our heads.

For example, a little three-year-old girl felt secure in her father's arms as Dad stood in the middle of a swimming pool. But Dad, for fun, began walking slowly toward the deep end, gently chanting "Deeper and deeper and deeper," as the water rose higher and higher on the child. The girl's face registered increasing degress of panic, as she held all the more tightly to her father, who, of course, easily touched the bottom. Had the little girl been able to analyze her situation, she'd have realized there was no reason for her increasing fear. The water's depth in ANY part of the pool was over her head. For her, safety anywhere in that pool depended on Dad.

At various points in our lives, all of us feel we're getting "out of our depth" or "in over our heads". There are problems all around: A job is lost, someone dies, there is strife in the family, or a bad report comes from the doctor. When these things happen, our temptation is to panic, because we feel we've lost control. But think about it-just like the child in the pool, the truth is we've never been in control when it comes to life's most crucial elements. We've always been held up by the grace of God, our Father, and that won't change. God is never out of His depth, and therefore we're as safe when we're in life's "deep end" as we were in the kiddie pool."

Confidence Deficiency

"Under-confidence is a condition; it might even be considered a sickness. And just like many other sicknesses, under-confidence is caused by a deficiency of one thing (confidence) and too much of another-in this case-fear. I refer to fear as an emotional virus because it begins as a thought in your head, then affects your emotions and behaviors-just like a flu virus might invade your body via a handshake or a sneeze and then make you feel miserable all over.

Fear is a dangerous virus, because a fearful person has no confidence and can never reach her potential in life. She won't step out of her comfort zone to do anything-especially something new or different. Fear is a cruel ruler, and its subjects live in constant torment.

It breaks my heart when I see people living fearfully, because without confidence, people can never know and experience true joy. The Holy Spirit of God Himself is grieved, because He has been sent into our lives to help us fulfill our God-ordained destinies. But you can't seek out your destiny when you've let fear slam and lock the door of your life. Instead, you cower behind the door, filled with self-hatred, condemnation, fear of rejection, fear of failure, and fear of others.

Many victims of fear end p being people-pleasers, prone to being controlled and manipulated by others. They give up the right to be themselves and usually spend their lives trying to be what they think they ought to be in someone else's eyes.

Sadly , when we try to be something or someone we are not intended to be, we stifle ourselves and God's power in us. When we have confidence, we can reach truly amazing heights; without confidence, even simple accomplishments are beyond our grasp.

Now, you might have read the preceding paragraph-about "amazing heights," and thought to yourself, Yeah right, Joyce. I'm not able to do anything amazing. (And I'm scared of heights too.) Don't despair if you have thoughts like this. Throughout history, God has used ordinary people to do amazing, extraordinary things. Yet, all of them had to take a step of faith first. They had to confidently press forward into the unknown or unfamiliar before making any progress. They had to believe they could do what they were attempting to do. "Achieve" come before "Believe" in the dictionary, but the order is switched in real life.

It's important to note that, in many cases, successful people have tried many times and failed before they ultimately succeeded. They not only had to begin with confidence, they had to remain confident when every circumstance seemed to shout at them, "Failure! Failure! Failure!"

Consider inventor Thomas Edison. He once said, "I speak without exaggeration when I say that I have constructed three thousand different theories in connection with the electric light, each one of them reasonable and apparently likely to be true. Yet in two cases only did my experiments prove the truth of my theory."

That means that Edison developed 2,998 failed theories en route to arriving at success. In fact, the true story of the light bulb is a long, tedious tale of repeated trial and error. Imagine how Edison must have felt as the failures piled up by the dozens, then the hundreds, then the thousands. Yet, through it all, he kept pressing forward. He believed in his bright idea, so he didn't lose his determination.

Just because ordinary people take steps to accomplish extraordinary things does not mean they do not feel fear. I believe the Old Testament hero Esther felt fear when she was asked to leaver her familiar, comfortable life and enter the king's harem so she could be used by God to save her nation. I believe Joshue felt fear when, after Moses died, he was given the job of taking the Israelites into the Promised Land. I know I had fear when God called me to quit my job and prepare for ministry. I still remember my skees shaking and my legs feeling so weak that I thought I would fall down. I remember the fear I felt then, but it frightens me more now to think of how my life would have turned out had I not faced the fear and pressed forward to do God's will. Fear does not mean you are a coward. It only means that you need to be willing to feel the fear and do what you need to do anyway.

If I would have let the fear I felt stop me, where would I be today? What would I be doing? Woudl I be happy and fulfilled? Woudl I be writting a book right now on being a confident woman-or would I be sitting at home, depressed and wondering why my life had been such a disappointment? I believe a lot of unhappy people are individuals who have let fear rule their lives.

How about you, my dear reader? Are you doing what you really believe you should be doing at this stage in your life, or have you allowed fear and a lack of confidence to prevent you from stepping out into new things-or higher levels of old things? If you don't like your answer, then let me give you some good news: It is never too late to begin again! Don't spend one more day living a narrow life that has room for only you and your fears. Make a decision right now that you will learn to live boldly, aggressively, and confidently. Don't let fear rule you any longer.

It's important to note that you can't just sit around and wait for fear to go away. You will have to feel the fear and take action anyway. Or, as John Wayne put it, "Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway." In other words, courage is not the absence of fear; it is action in the presence of fear. Bold peopel do what they know they should do-not what they feel like doing.

As I write these words, I feel very excited for you. I truly believe this book will be life-changing for many of you who read it. It may be a good reminder for some of you, but for others it will help you step out onto the path of your true life. The life that has been waiting for you since the beginning of time-and the one you may have been missing due to fear and intimidation. Satan is the master of intimidation, but once you realize that he is the one behind all your hesitation, you can take authority over him by simply placing confidence in Jesus Christ and stepping out boldly to be all you can be. God told Joshua, "Fear not, for I am with you." He is sending you that same message today: FEAR NOT! God is with you, and He will never leave you, nor forsake you.

Abraham was told, "God is with you in all that you do" (Genesis 21:22). That sounds like large living to me. Are you ready for a larger life, one that leaves you feeling satisfied and fulfilled? I believe you are, and I want to do everything I can to help you on your journey.

I know what it is like to live in fear. Fear can actually make you sick to your stomach. It can make you so tense and nervous that everyone around you notices that something is wrong; it's that evident in your facial expressions and your body language. What's more, just as confidence is contagious, so is the lack of self-confidence. When we possess no inner confidence, no one else has confidence in us either. Imagine a timid, cowering basketball player, standing in the corner of the court with her arms wrapped around herself. Is anyone going to pass her the ball? Is anybody going to call out plays to her?

When we think people are rejecting us, we feel hurt by them. The basketball player in the example above might think that her teammates hate her or have something against her. But, for fearful, under-confident people, the root of the problem is that they are rejecting themselves. They are rejecting the person God intended them to be."