Confidence is imperative for success in any area of life. The less confidence you have, likely the poorer you will do on a particular task, and vice-versa.
As Christians we need to be confident. God is glorified in our confidence, as long as it is rooted in humility. This can be a fine line, for confidence left unchecked can easy become cockiness and pride, and the Lord is very clear that He "opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble".
This needs to be taken very seriously. God will oppose your efforts if you are prideful. On the other hand, He will bless you with His grace if you are humble. Now, I am not saying that this is a recipe for certain success in our athletic, or other, pursuits; but it certainly is a recipe necessary to follow if we want God's favour in the things we work toward.
I believe, as Christians, that our success depends upon his God chooses to bless our efforts. For this reason, I want His grace, not His opposition. I therefore want to be humble, not prideful.
I do not believe that God wants us to rely solely on Him for our confidence. I realize how anti-Christian this may sound, but let me explain with an analogy.
If I were to walk into a job interview at a Fortune 500 company, and I had no knowledge on the company, their product, or business in general, I would be nervous. At least I should be, and for good reason. I am ill-equipped and completely unprepared. Now, if I walk into that interview and I am the CEO's son, I automatically will have much more confidence, and once again, for good reason. Now, if I go into that interview, as the CEO's son, but I also have spent numerous hours preparing for the interview, and know everything there is tonknow about the product, the company, and have a ton of general business knowledge that I can use in meaningful ways in the interview, and letter in the job I am applying for, well now my confidence is soaring, and once again for good reason.
You probably have figured out who the CEO represents. He does represent your Father - your Heavenly Father. The minute we have the Holy Spirit living within us and guiding our lives, it should automatically give us confidence. If it doesn't, it means we don't adequately comprehend what it means to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
At the same time, notice in the above analogy how increased knowledge and experience also breeds confidence. Having the Holy Spirit does not automatically make you good at everything. He still requires you to do your part to develop skills and talents that you can use to worship Him and to further His Kingdom. For in the process of developing those skills and gaining those experiences, you can worship Him, but again, those skills and experiences are necessary to further develop confidence. And the more confidence you have, the better you will perform.
I would also like to draw attention to the way this analogy demonstrates how easy it can be to cross the line from confidence to cockiness. The more confidence you have, the more justified you feel in being cocky. One reason for this is that increased confidence should lead to a consistent increase in performance, which in turn leads to expectations of successful performance.
As Christians, we seek to honour and worship the Lord in everything that we do. A major aspect of this worship is relentless effort to do our part to improve our skills and abilities so we can go out with confidence and perform, surrendering final results and outcomes to the Lord. We trust that God has a plan for the world around us, and for our individual lives, so we work hard to be the best we can be, and then we hand out effort over to God and trust Him to accomplish what He sees fit with our effort.
While it may seem like I have begun to go off on a tangent, let me know tie this all together. If we are trusting God to use our efforts to further His purposes, it is crucial to maintain a humble attitude so that He can look upon our efforts with His grace and favour. If we are cocky, them we are proud, and God opposes us. If we are confident, but humble, then we have His grace.
A terrific example of this is the account of David and Goliath. David's victory displays the importance of preparation, experience, and using both to develop supreme confidence that you take with you into your competitive performance.
David had fought lions and bears. He bad experience defeating foes in life-threatening situations. And his skill with a sling was not the result of immediate divine intervention. He bad practiced, and those hours of repetition had developed confidence that He could take with Him into this particular battle. He went in confident with a game plan, executed that plan confidently, defeated Goliath, and then surrendered the results of that victory to the Lord. God used that victory in many ways, both to further His Kingdom on Israel, but also in David's life.
As Christians, we can, and must, be confident, but never cocky. We must develop that confidence through working to develop our skills, relying on the Lord throughout the process. We must surrender all results to Him, allowing Him to create something beautiful, which align with His plans for our lives, His Kingdom and the world around us.
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