(Introduction)
Every woman alive has felt hesitant and nervous at some point. We worry intensely about a variety of things from our families to our jobs, and while it is human nature to want to succeed, achieve, and triumph over obstacles, we live in a culture that tells us we should be able to do this out of our own talents and abilities. So when we fail, when we can’t move forward on our own efforts, we feel defeated and hopeless.
The devotions in this book are designed to show women that the true source of confidence lies only with God. While our own strength will fail us, He never will. When terror overwhelms us, He is there, letting us know that He is greater than anything the world can throw at us.
There is an old hymn that tells us:
I sing because I’m happy,
I sing because I’m free.
His eye is on the sparrow,
And I know He watches me.
The God who sees every sparrow, the God who sent His Son to die for us, will give us hope and confidence to face anything.
Confidence in Action
Abigail
When Abigail saw David, she quickly got off her donkey and bowed down before David with her face to the ground. She fell at his feet and said: “My lord, let the blame be on me alone. Please let your servant speak to you; hear what your servant has to say.
1 Samuel 25:23-24 NIV
How many women have the confidence to believe they could stop an army?
Abigail of Maon, married to Nabal, lived in a culture in which women had little social or legal power. Her own talents would have been focused on her home, not the court or the battlefield. Yet, while Abigail would have been seen as little more than the wife of a fool by her society, she was far from powerless. Scripture describes her as intelligent and beautiful, and even her husband’s servants relied on her wisdom when Nabal put the household at risk with his foolish pride.
The reason was that Abigail had a secret weapon: God. Faced with the news than an angry king was leading an equally enraged army toward her home, she didn’t hesitate. Trusting in God’s protection–and in her belief that David was indeed a man after God’s own heart–she confronted the king and begged him to hear her. She appealed to his own belief in God’s mercy and judgment, and she asked him to let God deal with Nabal.
Abigail had the intelligence and wisdom to know what to do, but her confidence to put her knowledge into action had only one source–the same source every believing woman can draw on. Standing on a mountain path, with only food-laden donkeys at her back, Abigail was at the complete mercy of David’s rage. He could have killed her without question and gone on to slaughter her family and servants. As he most likely would have had she not had the courage to intervene.
Her belief in God, however, gave her the confidence to stand up in front of four hundred men and declare that letting God lead was a better path to follow.
The result must have astonished the king’s men. David listened to this humble woman, overwhelmed by her confidence and wisdom. His rage vanished; he called her blessed. After Nabal died, David further rewarded her by making Abigail his wife.
No matter what our gifts and talents, they are made even more powerful when put into action under God’s guidance. Trusting Him, believing in His power within us, gives all believers the confidence to take action.
Courage to Endure
For examples of patience in suffering, dear brothers and sisters,
look at the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.
We give great honor to those who endure under suffering.
Job is an example of a man who endured patiently.
From his experience we see how the Lord’s plan
finally ended in good, for he is full of tenderness and mercy.
James 5:10-11 NLT
From a very early age, Shelley Hendrix felt a call to share the Lord with those around her. She realized that her true value comes from a deep and abiding relationship with Christ, and the love with which God had filled her heart made her ache to help others, especially women and young girls, understand how their worth is centered in Him.
Shelley’s path toward this goal, however, has not been an easy one. The trials that she experienced–that most of us experience sooner or later–shook her to the core. In her own words, she explains how the agonies of life threatened to shake her confidence in God and her own ministry, and how the words of James helped her look to the Bible for guidance–and role models.
“In my calling to be a woman of God, I often find myself struggling with the painful events that the Lord, in His goodness, allows to come into my life. There is so much temptation in those times to lose confidence in God and to turn to my own resources to make life unfold in a way that would be more pleasant for me. There are so many different forms of suffering in the life of a believer.
“Through the painful events in my life—divorce, miscarriages, relationship struggles and simply living in a sin-cursed world—I have been able to maintain confidence in the Lord and in His working in my life as a result of the truths of who He is and who He says I am as His daughter. And because I am His child, all of His resources are available to me.
“He is good and He does good (Psalm 119:68). I can trust in Him confidently because of His good character. And, looking back at Job and the other prophets, and even those believers whose names are not found in the pages of Scripture, I can see in their lives ‘the Lord’s plan finally ended in good,’ and take as truth for myself, that He has an end intended for my struggles and pain as well—that in my life He is ‘full of tenderness and mercy.’
“How could I not trust Him?”
Confidence from Encouraging Others
You yourself have done this plenty of times, spoken words
that clarify, encouraged those who were about to quit.
Your words have put stumbling people on their feet,
put fresh hope in people about to collapse.
Job 4:3-4 MSG
“I don’t think I can do this.” Elaine sat in the car, refusing to get out.
I struggled with what to say, saying a little prayer for guidance. “What are you afraid of?”
She shrugged. “I’m not sure it’s fear. More like the embarrassment that makes you clean the house before the maid comes.” She paused. “I feel like I should lose weight before joining a gym.”
I almost laughed. Elaine had struggled with her weight for years, and here we were, about to go into a gym for the first time in more than twenty years. Elaine, however, now faced her fear of humiliation, in her words, “of being an old fat lady in front of all those young, hard bodies and skinny girls.”
It seemed trivial to both of us, given the much larger issues in our lives. But Elaine’s fear was real, and it threatened to be crippling, preventing her from making a much-needed change in her life. She needed encouragement; I wanted to offer to her the same help she’d so often given me in the past. It was then that this passage from Job came to mind, when Eliphaz reminds Job that he had so often encouraged his friends in the past, when their doubts had led them away from God. His words had helped them stay on the right path.
“Do you remember,” I asked Elaine, “telling me over and over that I’m beautiful in the eyes of God, no matter what people here think?”
She cut her eyes toward me. She didn’t want to hear this.
I grinned. “Your advice has always helped me, when I had problems thinking straight, especially about God. You are one of the most confident women I know, about everything but this. You told me that confidence lies in God. Yes?”
Reluctantly, Elaine nodded.
“So why is it you think He’ll support you with your hardest tasks, but not give you the confidence to do something as simple as walking into a gym?”
We sat in the dark for a long time, as Elaine stared out over the parking lot clustered with cars. “I guess,” she said finally, “if he can help David and Job through their darkest times, he can help me face a few skinny girls.”
We got out, thankful that God could give us the confidence to tackle any task, no matter how big . . . or small.
(Read the rest...)
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