Self-confident – trusting in one’s abilities, qualities, and judgments.
At the start of my day I don’t normally think about being self-confident. It’s just not normal for me. Breakfast, coffee, shower, coffee, feed the kids, coffee, get to the church, coffee. That’s the normal thought pattern for my first 90 minutes of the day. But today, the idea of self-confidence quickly became like one of those songs you get stuck in your head and you can’t get out – like Larry’s Hairbrush Song!
Oh where is my hairbrush
Oh where is my hair brush
Oh where oh where oh where oh where oh where……is my hair brush!
Let me digress here for a moment to give some backstory. The past 10 days have been anxiety filled as I prepare for Totally Christmas. Being the sound dude, my job is to create the right mix or ratio of voices and instruments and make them blend well. It’s sort of like a recipe – you have ingredients that need certain measurements – a cup of this, a teaspoon of that, etc. And when you mix them all together in the right measurements, the outcome is a delicious creation! But not enough of one ingredient or too much of another and the outcome is something less desirable to eat.
Mixing sound is much the same philosophy. You have different voice parts and different instrument parts and they all need mixed at the right measurements in order to create something that is delicious to the ears. Here lately, what I’ve been cooking up, sound wise, has had about the same results as my first attempt at cooking my wife dinner our first year of marriage. God bless her!
So this morning, I started out with my quiet devotion time in prayer seeking answers from God about what to do with my struggles. It went a little something like this…
“God, I’m concerned about how I’m mixing. I’m doing everything right as far as I can tell. I’ve got new mics, they’ve been setup properly, I’ve double and triple checked everything, I’ve practiced – I’m not sure why I’m still struggling here.”
My prayer time is no different than talking. In fact, I spoke those words out loud, in my bedroom, PJ’s and slippers still on, all while sipping coffee – just so you have a mental picture in case you wanted one! After my prayer, I waited quietly for a sound epiphany to drop from heaven – you know – some great idea that would solve all my mixing concerns. And guess what happened?? Yup…No sound epiphany.”
With my concerns aired out, but still slightly discouraged at my lack of an epiphany, I moved forward with reading a devotion. One of the passages the devotion used was Psalm 36:9 – which had absolutely nothing to do with my concerns, other than reminding me that God is the source of everything as well as its sustainer. (Don’t miss the irony in that statement to the context of this post.) I moved through the devotion, making a couple notes as I did and considered it one of those devotions that must not have been meant for me.
I know what you’re thinking but it didn’t hit me at that time. I’m slow. God knows that. Good thing He’s patient!
That verse kept rattling around in my noggin as I drove to the church. I dug my Bible out of my bag and opened up my study software and began a verse exposition. Through a round about way, (which I still cannot remember how), God led me to one verse that confused me.
Psalm 94:8 Consider and understand, you stupid ones among the people! And you [self-confident] fools, when will you become wise? (AMP)
This passage is part of a warning to the stubborn and wicked, calling them to repent and turn to God. Perplexed, I sat and pondered that verse and sought God to show me something – anything! When it should have smacked me in the face, it was more like a gentle, quiet nudge that drew me to two words only in the Amplified Bible.
Self-Confident.
I had all the right ingredients on the stage to mix and create something delicious to the ears. But I’d left out one critical ingredient behind the scenes – the source and sustainer of all created things. (Psalm 36:9) Yup, now do you see the irony?
God wants to co-create with us. He wants to be involved in all aspects of life and more than that, we need Him in all aspects of life. Why else would He have gone to such great measures to bridge the gap between Himself and humanity by sending His Son to earth?
I was self-confident (in a foolish way – that’s important not to miss), mainly due to past successes. In those successes, however, I had forgotten how much I included and needed God in them – seeking His blessing. I can be the best sound dude in the world, but without God blessing my efforts, they end up being as worthless as a white dog turd.
God doesn’t need included – He’s omnipresent and omniscient. It was I that needed to include Him. I needed the awareness of His presence and my neediness awakened and stirred up within me. I needed to need Him. I can do nothing good without Him. Do me a favor – read that sentence again.
It is easy to lose the awareness of my own neediness – particularly with success. I can have all the right mics, singers, and instruments, but if I leave God out of the mix, well, the mix will be incomplete.
It’s that way with anything in life. God did not intend for us to be self-sufficient, but to find all our needs filled in Christ. Paul writes,
Philippians 4:19 And my God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.
Don’t be backwards about being needy. Don’t bury those feelings or try to fill them in some other way (which leads to idolatry). Instead find all the fulfillment you need as you rejoice in your neediness. He is waiting and ready to fill and sustain us.
