How to have confidence in life—the first verse of chapter 28 lays it out.
The first half of verse one has a bottom line.
Sin makes men cowards.
Why? Several reasons. For those with a conscience, they know they are guilty and so become timid and afraid. They run away even when no one is pursuing. They are in continual expectation of being found out and punished. If not in this life, then in the next.
Their evil actively turns their ears away (verse nine). God notices. Their prayer is an abomination to him!
You might be wondering, “I thought I was going to read about how to be confident?”
Consider the second half of verse one. It has its own bottom line.
Obedience to God makes men bold.
What a difference.
Whatever difficulties the righteous meet in the way of duty, they are not daunted. They are bold; bold as a lion.
They are undismayed in the presence of danger, because their conscience is at rest, they know that God is on their side, and, whatever happens, they are safe in the everlasting arms (see Psalm 91.).
This confidence is not the type where they are strutting around. We’ve read plenty of advice in Proverbs about not boasting.
Imagine if we could live this way.
We would live our lives with this bold, yet humble confidence.
We would live this way, not alone, not in our own strength, but by following God.
We’d pray. We’d seek God’s will. We’d study His Word. We’d seek godly counsel. And when all of that is done and we’d had a sense of God’s direction—we’d boldly GO!
(“Where no man has gone before”—sorry I couldn’t resist.)
In all seriousness, godly living is confident living. Godly living demands it. Confidence in God. Confidence that God is with us.
There will be naysayers. There always are.
We will need to separate out the naysayers from the people God is sending us with His counsel.
In this process it is important that you don’t let a human’s voice be louder than God’s.
Which means we will need to remind ourselves that we prayed, that we studied God’s Word, that we sought counsel.
Let’s “run a scenario”. Let’s say we “go for it” and fail.
Let’s just say after all the prayers, etc., we come up short. Let’s say we somehow got off-track. Maybe we were wrong, and we weren’t following what God wanted. Maybe we started following, but then tried doing things in our own power.
We’d find ourselves sitting with God, licking our wounds, and engaging Him.
I think God will be pleased. I think He will be pleased that we at least tried to do it with Him, with boldness, trying to live trusting Him and not ourselves!
We have a real-life example: David. As a shepherd boy. He faced bears and even a giant (1 Samuel 17:32-50). As a king he had his moments of great success. He also had his moments as a murderer and adulterer. Yet God would say he was a man after his own heart.
David heart was linked to Gods. David remembered God’s promises, like the one in Leviticus 26:3-8.
David got it wrong a bunch. He always had issues going on. There were days he was far away from God. But he was real with God—when he messed up, he put his heart right in God’s hand—and the Father loved him for his sincerity.
David lived confidently with God.
What part of your life, what decisions, do you need to bring to Him in prayer, to sit in His Word, and to seek the counsel of others—so that you may confidently, boldly, follow His direction?