“I wish I could be a more self-confident!

So many times I’ve whispered this prayer when I’ve had to do something new.  Your hands shake, mouth gets dry, stomach flutters, and those legs feel so unsteady…don’t you hate that feeling?

God asks us to do crazy things that require us to step OUTSIDE of our comfort zone.  Life outside of our “box” is His specialty.  Following Him requires a great deal of faith.  And confidence would be a good thing, wouldn’t it?

It depends…

The definition of confidence is this:  a full trust; belief in the powers, trustworthiness, or reliability of a person or thing.

This culture heralds strong and confident women. At least here in our nation, it is a great time to be a woman.  But strength and confidence in what?  Or the better question-in WHOM?  While we all want to be excellent at what we do, what happens when we come to the end of our strength? Or when someone comes along who is more talented or skilled?  Are we now deemed a failure?

I don’t think so.

As a social worker, I have watched the feminist movement champion the power of femininity and promote self-reliance.  And I, too, believe that we must empower and encourage our girls with vision and life skills so they can safely and successfully navigate life.  It’s why I use horses, self-defense, drama, education, and whatever-I-can-lay-my-hands-on…to build my girls into strong women.

    

But have we protected them from the insidious dangers of self-reliance? Are we, the older generation of empowered women, doing our part to help them navigate the hazards of freedom as well?

To encourage them to place their identity and confidence in their accomplishments, abilities, sexuality or resources seems still very wrong.  And how is this really any different that placing our identity in our beauty, children, or marriage-something the feminists so vehemently decry?

Any woman can wake up one day stripped bare of ALL of these things by the circumstances of life.   Cancer, death, sexual abuse, divorce, addiction, bankruptcy, downsizing, middle-age…you know all those nasty words.

No matter how hard you work, play, or push; sometimes life just doesn’t play nice.  

I only have so much strength, power, or control.  Eventually, I will reach the limit.  And if my confidence is wrongly placed in only myself, I will find myself at that limit again and again.  It is a perpetual cycle of frustration.

Especially, for those of us who are control freaks.

All the empowerment in the universe leaves us still vulnerable-and not even the feminist movement can provide us an answer to this problem.

Perhaps this vulnerability is an indication of a greater truth that rules OUTSIDE of us. Maybe self-confidence, self-assurance, or self-reliance wasn’t really the goal.  Maybe we were never meant to go through life alone.  Maybe we were made to be in a holy union with One…to live under His wings of love, grace and protection.

So WHERE you place your confidence is the key…

Because it doesn’t matters to the enemy of our souls whether women are subservient–or strong and self-reliant.  If he can’t keep us down through patriarchal oppression, he is satisfied to set us up and take us down by making us fall flat on our faces when we hit the wall of our own self-reliance.

Never believe the lie that we have “arrived” and are safe from the enemy’s desire to destroy the beauty and power of women.  He has hated us since that day in the garden and hates us even more today.  He will exploit our self-confidence at the first opportunity.

True and enduring confidence comes from a dependent reliance upon Christ for all things that we need. Our trust is in HIS infallibility.  I will fail.  Our belief is in the power of HIS omnipotence.  I am limited in power.  No matter the situation or challenge that you face, Paul says the secret to real “confidence” is this:

“I can do all things THROUGH CHRIST who gives me strength.” (Phi. 4:13)

So maybe the key is removing “self” from the word confident. “For who makes you different from anyone else?  What do you have that you did not receive?  And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?” (1 Cor. 4:7)

God has given us everything we have — our talent, strength, breath. So there is nothing in us that we can take credit for.  Humbling, but liberating.

And that sounds like God, doesn’t it?

We don’t have everything we need inside of us to tackle all of life’s challenges.  But as followers of Christ, we do have all we need available to us.  He is our ultimate source and refuge when life isn’t fair and that frees us from the burden of “self” reliance.  Place all that you are and all that you have into His hands.  You will find the holy confidence David discovered,

“It is God who arms me with strength and makes my way perfect.” (Psa.18:32)

Spread THAT message to every girl you know.  Greater is He who lives in us than he who seeks to take us down.  Then watch them walk in a real and holy “girl-power” that will never fail them.

And maybe just a little nervousness is really the holy, humble reminder that all of us need.