I read a really interesting article the other day by Chris Hardwick, a writer and comedian I’m a huge fan of. The piece is called "Confidence Theory," and talks all about how confidence is simple – it’s having options. It’s knowing that if this (whatever this is) doesn’t work out, I’ve got a fallback. The world won’t end, I’ll be okay, and I’ve got something that’s a rock, that’s always there. Read the article – it’s interesting stuff.
It also got me thinking. Chris’ article is primarily about professional confidence. Do something audacious, he’s saying, and the confidence to do that comes from the ability to have a fallback if all else fails. But confidence, I think, is much bigger than just our work. So where does real confidence come from?
I know where it should come from, though: God. The way I see it, God’s way cooler than anyone else. If I go out on a limb, do something crazy, and fail horribly, what’s going to happen? Worst-case scenario, my friends laugh at me and stop talking to me. That’s not going to happen, but for the sake of argument, let’s say it’s true.
If I know, and fully understand, that the all-powerful God of the Universe is still behind me and still loves me, how can I be afraid of anything else? The confidence that comes from having options, having other things there to catch you when you fall, should come so much more easily when it’s God who’s there to catch us.
Chris at one point says this:
Whenever you have at least one other option in life, you feel relaxed, safe and cool because if the one thing doesn’t work out, you’re not going to die.
When that option is God, and we understand that He’s not going anywhere – the one relationship that ultimately matters isn’t even remotely in jeopardy – there’s huge confidence and freedom in that. We can go, make spectacular mistakes, do things 100% wrong, and be confident in the fact that the God and Creator of everything is there exactly as much as before.
So why, for me and for everyone else, is that so hard to put in practice? I think the answer is this: God isn’t tangible. We have security blankets and Emergency Funds because when the roof caves in, we have something to touch, to hold, to look at that somehow makes us feel safe and secure again. In our professional lives, we have that one thing we know we’re great at that we can point to and know that somehow, we’re going to be okay.
But God doesn’t work that way. I can’t look at God and know He’s my friend. So I worry about making friends, and making sure I’m somehow cool enough among the people I can see and surround myself with to rejuvenate my confidence. God, in whom I should find the most confidence, is the hardest source of it in my life.
So what do we do? How does life change if we don’t fear screwing up the only thing that ultimately matters? What does it mean that no matter how bad I am, or how awesomely I fail, I’m still okay, because God says so?
Photo: truello
The inspiration for the name of this site is a phrase and a story that’s come to mean a great deal to me. It’s something that’s changed how I see other people, how I understand my own life, and how I function in the world.
John Bradford lived in the first half of the 16th century, and was an English reformer. He was at one point put into prison in the Tower of London, along with three other reformers, for "trying to stir up a mob." He was put into a cell, where he would spend his life writing and thinking with three other reformers, and all four eventually died for their "crimes."
At one point during his imprisonment, Bradford watched a group of prisoners being led to their execution, many of them having been convicted of the same non-existent crimes that he himself was put in jail for.
Bradford looked out the window at the prisoners and said "There but for the grace of God, goes John Bradford."
Bradford was a religious, impressive, and Godly man. Yet he realized that the success and achievements of his life were because of only one thing – grace. He realized that were it not for grace, he’d be in the same position.
One of the things in life I try to live by is that notion – the things I have, the things I’m able to do, and the life I lead are due to nothing more than the grace of God. I’ve done nothing of my own accord to deserve it, and I owe whatever I have to grace.
That’s the mindset I hope to bring to everything on this site – that anything I know, anything I am, all the good things that happen to me are not from me, but from grace. People around me are constantly in trouble, having struggles, falling along the way in life.
And there, but for the grace of God, goes David Pierce.
Photo: McBeth
