Courage in the “C’s” of Confidence
When I was in the 6th grade, I had an experience that profoundly shaped my life. If you’re not one of the lucky ones who has managed to completely block out the middle school years you may be able to relate. I was sitting in Ms. Pittman’s math class trying my best not to make eye contact when she summoned me to the overhead. I was a walking bundle of nerves as my heart raced and palms began to sweat.
Just to set the story straight, math has never been my thing. Please don’t take offense if you’re a math lover; I’ve just always found it boring and rather senseless. To make matters worse in 6th grade someone thought it would be a great idea to add letters into the mix. Seriously, I thought this was math and now we’ve got letters to navigate as well? How much longer till lunch, P.E. or Social Studies? Heck, give me English! Just get me out of math class. Anything that even remotely sounds like algebra still sends a cold chill through my veins.
Here I was! The moment of truth where my teacher and classmates get the joy of evaluating my mental capacities when all I want to do is run and hide. As my face blushed and armpits perspired my confidence reached an all-time low. When I think about purgatory, I’m surrounded by overheads while sinking in an endless pit of algebra laden transparencies! The students who’d come before had slain their problems with ease but that all ended with me. As I looked down at the problem, I swear it smirked. Algebra, what a ghastly concept!
Thankfully I’ve matured through the years and learned how to process failure…..better at least. The fear of failure is a natural part of the human existence. If I’d had a little more life experience under my belt that day I would have realized that every person in the room has situations that for them would have generated similar feelings of anxiety. There’s no way to know for sure, but even Ms. Pittman may have experienced similar feelings if for example she found herself in a room full of peers forced to parse a sentence.
Fear of failure is a universal experience yet we often convince ourselves that to be confident inherently means the absence of fear. For years I would pray and ask God to make me more confident because I assumed fear was holding me back and the antidote for my fear was confidence. Failure wasn’t killing my dreams because I didn’t even give myself a chance to fail. It was fear that was killing my dreams and I needed a heavy dose of confidence to rectify the situation.
Recently I’ve stopped praying for the Lord to give me more confidence and replaced my request with courage. Confidence isn’t a bad thing but to expect confidence to be a catalyst for change is putting the cart before the horse. Courage is what we need. Courage is the willingness to push into our fears by faith even though we may fail.
Anytime I’m feeling fearful I take a few minutes and look at a very reassuring passage in the bible. Mark records in His account of Jesus’ life the Garden of Gethsemane prayer. Jesus is on the cusp of His arrest and crucifixion and He’s afraid. Jesus knows what He will endure and the importance of His mission. His solution is not more confidence but courage from the Father to do His will. It’s an amazing passage that I encourage you to look at today (Mark 14:32-42). Jesus was deeply distressed and horrified over the mission He’d been given to the point He asked for it to be taken away. However, His final conclusion was not His own will but the will of His Father. I see a whole lot of courage in the passage as Jesus pushed into His fear by faith.
What steps are you needing to take today that you’ve been putting off? It’s easy to convince myself that I just need more confidence to fight my fear but confidence isn’t the right antidote; it’s courage. Will you join me in praying for God to make us courageous people who push into our fears by faith? Now that’s a prayer that can change the world!