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As a business consultant for over 15 years now, I’ve learned that successful consultants possess two important attributes. The first, not surprisingly, is competence. Firms hire you because you have an expertise that can benefit them in some way. Without it, you can’t even get in the door. No expertise, no access. The second attribute, though, is probably more important. Confidence. Confidence is the willingness to move into the unknown believing in a positive outcome. And here’s where many would-be successful consultants fail. They have competence, but, in the face of a business challenge they’ve not seen before, they lack confidence they can perform the work. And it shows in their presentation to the prospective client. They got the access, but they didn’t get the account.

When I read this verse in Ephesians, it occurred to me that God is giving us both. By faith, borne of His amazing grace, we have freedom to approach the Holy One just as we are. His love overcomes our incompetence to gain access to heaven on our own. What’s more, He invites to approach Him with confidence. Confidence not in our competencies, but in His character. We have a loving Father that desires to open the storehouses of His account to us. (Phil 4:19) As the Apostle John wrote, “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.” (1 John 5:14-15)

Your thoughts? How’s your confidence level today?

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I’ve got voices in my head. You probably do too. Many of my voices put me down. They say things like: “You don’t have the discipline to pull that off” or “You failed the last time you tried that” or “You don’t really have what it takes.” Some of these voices I recognize—bosses, teachers, parents, friends. Now, to be fair, none of them actually said those things to me. They’re more like recurring extrapolations of the displeasure I’ve sensed from them on memorable occasions. During the height of the Internet bubble, for instance, I remember one business advisor saying to me in passing, “If you haven’t come up with a winning product idea by now, you probably won’t.” Ouch. That one struck hard. And still does. These are my ANTs—Automatic Negative Thoughts. They usually spring to life the instant I contemplate doing something I’ve not tried before. Acquiescence feeds them. Courageous confidence defeats them. Today I think I’ll set out some nice ANT traps. Care to join me?

Your thoughts? What are some of the ANTs that might be robbing your confidence?

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Walls protect. They also keep unwanted things out. David, ancient king of Israel and psalmist, had enemies that certainly wanted to keep him out. You can imagine them boasting of their great wall, taking foolish comfort in their surroundings and their possessions. Yet, when God leads, no wall is an obstacle. God gave David the confidence of a superhero. When you put your trust in Him, He’ll lead you too—up and over your tallest challenge.

Your thoughts? Is there a wall you’re facing that you need confidence to scale?

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One evening, in our early years of marriage, I set out to demonstrate my prowess as a do-it-yourselfer. The task: replace a leaky kitchen faucet with a new one purchased the day before. That I waited until after the stores closed to begin the repair was testimony to my confidence in the task. Soon, I would be her knight in shining armor. No more would she have to endure the incessant and lonely drip, drip, drip throughout the night. Yep, in no time, she’d be in my arms thanking me as we both admired my handiwork. It didn’t quite turn out that way.

I discovered, after disconnecting the old faucet, that the length of tubing from the new faucet to the supply line was short by two inches. Back then there were no all night hardware stores and, to make matters worse, the sink had no faucet valves, meaning the entire water supply to the house was off until a store opened in the morning. That meant no flushing toilets or morning showers. Water for brushing teeth came courtesy of a midnight skulk to “borrow” water from a neighbor’s garden hose. This knight’s shining armor had turned to rust. Finally, well after midnight, my confident exuberance surrendered to confused exhaustion.

Laying in bed that night, disappointed that I allowed my confidence to get ahead of my thinking, I took comfort at least in knowing that Anna could sleep in silence. Anna took comfort too, knowing that in the morning she’d be calling a plumber to finish her knight’s task.

Your thoughts? Has your confidence ever gotten ahead of your thinking about a problem?

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