Confidence

  Confidence is a hard word to think of. If you are thinking about confidence, it usually means you have lost some.

  You can lose confidence in your abilities. You may even lose confidence in your thoughts.

  Losing confidence in God can happen. You may be thinking that losing confidence in God is a horrible sin. Yet sometimes it happens. Usually I notice there is a failure on my part to cause me to lose faith in God. In fact, it rarely takes much for me to be aware how God never fails me, but rather, I blew it and thus had my lapse in confidence.

  Then there are people.

  I lose confidence in people when they fail to live up to their stated beliefs. In my arrogance, I seldom grant people the same forgiveness I expect from them. Nevertheless, an error on anothers part causes a break in my confidence in them.

  I also lose confidence when my personal anonymity is broken. There are very few people who I can trust with the deep dark problems in my life. The fact is that confidence in sharing those secrets with someone is one of the fundamental building blocks. Upon those blocks a lifetime of fellowship can be established.

  When my confidence has been broken, I no longer have the ability to share intimate details with the person. When this happens it causes a great deal of grief for me. I am not able to scrub out all the garbage on my own. 

  God has told me, in His word, that I am to share my faults with other christians. On a generic level this can and should happen with all believers I choose to worship with. They should be aware of the basic issues that I face so they can pray for me and help me. This causes the fellowship to grow, when we share our shortcomings. But these shortcomings have to be in general terms because the specific things shouldn't be shared in an open forum.

  Beyond the general things, there must come someone with whom I can share those intimate details. By the very nature of those items, I must find someone very trustworthy. Someone who may have had the same faults or at least is familiar with those faults would be ideal. Perhaps the most important thing is that there must be complete confidence.

  If I share my intimate hurts and pains with someone, who in turn goes and talks to others, confidence is lost. You see, only I have the right to share my story. If someone else shares my story, they are undermining my growth, and it can hurt when that happens.

  The ability to place my character defects into a friends care is a very important thing. Many people fail to grow and end up falling back into their problems because they failed to do a complete house cleaning. And for me that house cleaning has to involve a friend.

  I am sure there are those who would say that I could just give those things over to God and that would suffice. For others this may work. In my life this would not be enough. Yes, God is my confidence and my strength. However, there is greater freedom to be found in bearing my faults to a trusted friend. Pouring out my flaws to another helps me to process lifes issues more properly.

  I encourage you to become that friend to someone in your life. To share in a friends troubles is a great honor. One not to be taken lightly.

  If you haven't spoken about all the junk you have thought or done, maybe finding a trusted friend could help bring you to a closer walk with God. As you think about that, I am sure you are a bit worried about the whole confidence thing as well. Imagine the friendship that can be had, if someone knew your junk, and still loved you. 

  I am currently looking for my trusted friend. I have found a couple of candidates who could become very close brothers indeed. This is not a decision to be taken lightly. A friend who can be trusted with all of my past, is quite a friend.

  So this confidence thing is another thing I will strive towards. God says that we are comforted so that we can comfort others. I strive to be a comfort to those God puts in my life. And to those who become closer than a brother, that comfort should be incredible!