Confidence is often found in knowing this will be like that

​Before I present, I always say a prayer of some sort. Sometimes long, sometimes a short whisper. Yesterday was a whisper. "God, please give me confidence".

That was an unusual prayer for me. I'm not usually unsure of myself before I speak. But there I stood, just moments before I was supposed to start talking, unsure.

I knew where it was coming from. It had been a long week. Some lost sleep compounded by travel. And, the audience was a bit of a different audience in some ways. You never know if your message will reach people you aren't used to reaching.

So I simply whispered, "God, please give me confidence."

Then, for 90 minutes, I talked. I talked feeling full of confidence.

The thing about God, though, is he's not interested in us staying stuck in momentary feelings. It's not enough for God that I FELT confident. He wanted to answer that prayer a little deeper. He wanted me ultimately to BE more confident.

After my presentation, a woman approached me. I could see she was a bit emotional. She told me that many years ago she'd adopted a little baby. An orphan from a far away country.

When she brought the baby home, she participated in therapy that would help her bond with the baby. Much of the therapy encouraged her to hold the baby, to cuddle with the baby, no matter how much the baby seemed to resist the cuddling.

It pained her, she told me, that it took so long for the baby to stop resisting her embrace. She questioned herself. She lost confidence in her ability to be a mom.

She told me until hearing me speak, she never understood why her baby took so long to feel secure with her. She had never heard the science of attachment. She never fully understood the 'why' inside the embrace that eventually became her baby's security.

She thanked me for helping her connect the dots of her story.

As she walked away, I was overwhelmed by a God who would be so good to me in that moment. A God who would answer my prayer in such a mighty way, and with the most beautiful story. I don't deserve this kind of goodness, I thought.

I am reminded this morning of a story in the bible, of little David trying to talk Saul into letting him do battle with a giant of a man named Goliath. No one believed David could take down Goliath, including Saul, but David was confident that's exactly what he'd do.

Why?

The bible tells us David said, “Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it. Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them."

This will be like that.

David had a this he leaned on for his confidence. After my presentation yesterday, God delivered me another 'this' to hold onto when my confidence is shaken again. Because it will be.

Too often our confidence is shaken because we start listening to voices. Many times our own doubting voices. Other times it's the doubting voices around us.

But sometimes we need to close our ears to the voices and look for a 'this' in our past. Our this will be like that.

I am grateful to a God who in my moment of unsurety answered a prayer with a gift far grander than I could have ever thought to pray for.

He sent me a this. A this in the form of a little orphan baby. And I know one day soon 'this' will be like that.

This will make me know I am much bigger than I am thinking. And that, my friends, that is the nature of God in my life.