Therefore, let’s approach the throne of grace with confidence so that we may receive mercy and find grace for help at the time of our need. (Hebrews 4:16, NASB)
What is it about your golf game that gives you confidence? Now really? There must be something. My answer now may be the 1 ½ foot straight uphill putt, with the grain and no break with no one looking. Can I get an amen?
What gives you confidence in your life? Do you have faith, or are you looking for faith? Are you bolder and more assured the longer you have walked with Jesus? Have you experienced miracles in your journey that produce confidence for current and future challenges? Oswald Chambers says, “I am no longer confident in what I have done; I am confident only in God.” What has God done in your life?
Our experiences could teach us that the sermon of our life points to the provisions of God. Here is a better question concerning confidence—is our faith and hope stronger because we have witnessed God at work?
I have two measurable answers that illuminate the path for me. First, I am reading through my journals from 1997, my first year in vocational ministry. I started confident, yet I was so naïve and did not understand the cost.
My job description was to promote and fill a Christian guest ranch in Colorado called Wind River Ranch. It had never been a Christian guest ranch. Honestly, I was so unqualified. Even the new name—a Christian dude and guest ranch—ran off most of the former guests.
My inadequacy immediately prompted courageous prayers. God, help us! Each day, my journal was filled with prayers and pleadings for God’s intervention, yet every challenging week, He provided new astounding experiences of lives being changed in staff and guests for His glory. Hello!
It now gives me confidence to look forward when I look back and see the Hand of God twenty-seven years later. The good news is that He is still doing miracles in Colorado today on those same holy grounds.
Secondly, I have dearly loved my partnership with Links Players in the past eighteen years. Why? It is one thing to read the Bible and quite another to study, meditate, and experience God’s mighty direction through living life with real men and women who have changed the conversation and direction of their lives.
I still meet today with many of the same men who started Links Fellowships eighteen years ago. Something contagious happens when men meditate, search, pray, study, and overcome challenges together.
They know me and love me anyway. I also see our dependence on God grow through many of the valley experiences we share together. Originally, I thought it would be a nice golf ministry. I had no idea that it would bring me to my knees in joy, supplication, and gratitude.
Tim Keller said, “The gospel is this: We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, and more accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.”
I desire to firmly place my trust in God, not myself. I am convinced that the God who made us all can do all things through His piece of clay fashioned for a purpose. This gives me confidence. I now know that I am a child of God, and He loves me very much. What child would not be confident in a Father like that?
Prayer: Lord, Your patience and promise give us confidence for today and tomorrow.