be confident!

June 21, 2006

"be confident, be confident, be confident!"

my vocal teacher kept saying this to me at my last vocal class. i smiled at him and then prayed those words into my life. "God, i need to have more confidence in myself. not an unrealistic, self-serving confidence, but an acknowledgment of the person You have created me to be, including the gifts, talents, abilities and passions. my lack of self-confidence can get in the way of the work You do in my life because i focus too much on myself and not enough on You. free me from that."

i was reminded how God is using my vocal classes not only to develop the voice He's given me, but also to work at my struggles with self-confidence. i love how God uses everyday things like vocal classes to speak truth into my life.

later, my vocal teacher said to me, "you have such a beautiful voice leo. i don't think you fully understand that."

i shrugged, "i guess not." his words rolled off my shoulders. but as i thought about it some more, i thought to myself, "is that really true? could it be possible? maybe he's just saying that to be nice... but wait a second! this is my vocal teacher here. he's the most straight-up, blunt guy you could ever meet. this guy almost left me in tears once. he's not just saying it."

why do i think like that? it's like, i'm afraid of admitting that God's given me gifts in certain areas of my life, afraid of actually being excellent at something, even though i believe we must give God our excellence. but believing that we must give God our excellence and being excellent (by God's grace) are very different things. i've noticed almost every time i have to perform, present, speak, create, my immediate response following it is, "did i do okay? was that alright? i hope i didn't screw up." i rarely think, "wow, that really went well. i'm glad the Lord is able to use me for His work." all i want to hear after i'm finished is "you did fine." one phrase commonly said about this is "you are your own worst critic." i am notorious for this. i tend to think the worst when i'm shaky about what i just did. even if i'm happy with something i did, i tend to look to others for affirmation. the core of my problem? i have way too much focus on the self and not enough on Him.

confidence can be viewed as a line: on one side, you have no-confidence, on the opposite side, you have over-confidence, in the middle, you have healthy confidence.

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no confidence         healthy confidence          over-confidence

no confidence can lead to fear, anxiety, worry, self-handicapping, performance degradation, too much focus on self and not enough on God.

healthy confidence leads to an appropriate perspective about the self. i believe this is where we all need to be. confident in the gifts, skills, abilities, talents we have and confident that those things are given to us by God. there's a balance. in my four years in design, i always attributed all my grades and achievements to the Lord and absolutely none to myself. at the end of four years, i was like wow, God really pulled the wool over the eyes of my educators! when i stopped to think about that, i realized there was something horribly wrong with my mentality. as if i had no part of those things! i had a choice in my education: to work hard, to pursue excellence, to give God my best OR to laze around and half-heartedly approach my studies. sure, God has given me the desire for the first rather than the latter, but still, it ultimately comes down to the individual what they will do. if you were to do some kind of work for the Lord and someone came up to encourage you afterwards, you might say, "oh no, it's not me, it was the Lord." how would that person respond? it makes that person feel awkward. i think a much better response would be, "thank you for your encouragement. i am glad the Lord was able to use me!" God allows us to participate in His Kingdom work. He gives us a choice. if we choose to participate, we have a part in the work. so to say "oh no, it wasn't me" is simply not true. you could say, "oh, it wasn't simply me, it was the Lord working through me." there's two key players: you and God.

over-confidence can lead to pride, arrogance, self-reliance, performance degradation, too much focus on self and not enough on God.

even though i came to the realization in my design studies about my confidence issues, i still err more on the no confidence side, but i know the Lord has been working in me to bring me closer to the middle. be confident. be confident. i need to remind myself of these words so that in time, with the Lord's help, i'll move towards a more healthy confidence. less of me and more of you Jesus.

Posted by Leo Chan at June 21, 2006 10:05 AM