Where is my confidence?
I have really been doing some thinking about a lot of stuff in my life. I have been trying to decide if I want to move to Owings Mills and I think the answer is yes as I have talked to my mortgage guy about a loan and am in the process of obtaining a realtor. I think I need to live where God is leading my life to.
As for other stuff while this year has been great in that I feel I have beome stronger in my faith to God I also have been struggling with some stress issues. I have been trying to figure out why and as I talk with God I am beginning to find some answers. For so long I lived confident in my own abilities to get things done and for the most part it worked pretty well but as things fell apart around me and it no longer worked I began to realize that I needed God to help me with the stuff going on that I could not handle. While He has and while I know He always will I still am struggling at times. I feel like that while I say I believe God will handle things that there must still be a part of me that doubts it or I would not feel the way I do sometimes. For some reason I have lost what use to be my biggest strength and that was the confidence I had in myself to be able to get things done.
Where has this confidence gone? Why now when my life is so much better and I am trying to live it in obedience to God through my faith in Jesus Christ has this feeling gone away? I don’t fully know. I know God needed to break me down so He could build me back up again and I am hoping I am on the way back up but where in the process did this confidence go. Why am worried about things more now than ever? Why can’t I just trust God the way I always trusted myself?
As I have prayed about this I come up with different answers at times but the one that has been coming up the most is that I have taken myself out of the equation altogether because of this fear that I’m not good enough anymore. I have begun to realize that while I know God will handle things He still wants me in the game. Through the sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus Christ I have been saved and since He lives in my heart through the Holy Spirit I can’t just sit on the sidelines and while at times it will be hard I have to get back into the fight. I don’t mean living the way I used to by trying to handle everything on my own but by living confidently that God is leading me and that I have nothing to fear and that by trusting in Him and His son Jesus Christ that He will lead me through the power of the Holy Spirit.
For so long my line always was to a friend with a problem was Trust Me and now I have not listened to my own friend Jesus Christ when through prayer He has said Trust Me.
I know this sounds funny but the thing that came to me was the fight scene in Star Wars when the Rebels are trying to blow up the Death Star. After others missed using the computer it is Luke’s turn to try and take a shot. As he prepares to fire like everyone else a thought goes through his mind from his friend to use the force and he shuts off the computer to the arguments of others and takes a shot on faith in the force and hits the target. Now obviously I don’t believe in the force but I do believe in God and it has dawned on me that I too have to get in the fight but I also have to trust God to lead me through. It is time for me to get back in the fighter but this time to turn the computer off and fight the fight with faith in Jesus.
I know this is probably really jumbled but it is some thoughts that I have wanted to get out for awhile.
August 31st, 2004 at 3:50 pm
I don’t know how I happened upon this page, but I did and I am glad I did. I am going through the same thing, putting all my faith in my lord. It is a new thing for me and often scarry. One thing I keep in my mind when I am battling issues, is that, even though I am trying to have a relationship with God and he is going to be there for me and my family, there is still satan out there and satan does not want my relationship with God and will do anything to make me feel like I really don’t have one. I know I do have one. This might not help you, but it helps me to know someone else is going through the same thing I am. In my life, I am (for the first time) actually and truly getting to know God, but my husband is content with the way our lives were (the parting, drinking, ect.). My pastor put a little story in our pamphlets on Sunday. It read: A pastor and a member of the church were talking about titheing. The member was telling the pastor how he can not tithe, he would love to, but his bills would not get paid. The pastor said “Tell you what, if you start tithing and come up short in your bills, I will help cover your bills.” The member was excited, he thought that was a great idea. Then the pastor asked him “Now, why wuould you put all your faith in me, a mere human, and not in God?” That really gave me something to think about.
September 7th, 2004 at 6:58 am
Thanks B.M.J. for the thoughtful comments. Words of encouragement always help me feel better.