I have been doing some dog training lately, and in the process I’m learning more about myself than the dogs. The subject is confidence! One of the dogs is a strong dominant Lab whose confidence is high—in his own ideas. The other is a male English Pointer who lacks confidence and needs to know he can trust his handlers. The Lab is much more fun to watch. No one likes to see someone else intimidated, whether human or animal. But the Lab is a hand-full! He is never without his own "opinion" as to how things are to be done. He would be glad to take the whistle and set the agenda for training me. There is never a look of defeat in his eyes. The Pointer takes just as much time as I try to "bold him up." He doesn’t yet know where the source of confidence lies.

Confidence is attractive. It can also be dangerous. We all gravitate to the person who has the "look." Who wants to follow the person who looks like they are lost or confused? The danger comes from having confidence in the wrong source combined with the need to have a leader. History proves that there is a crowd who will follow confident people even if they are destructive to everyone and everything.

The confidence I am looking for is confidence before God. I have been encouraged by scripture that there is a place before God where we can stand without shame and condemnation. It is a place where we know acceptance and unconditional love. There we find the significance of being partners with God himself in spreading the news of his kingdom on earth. Why don’t we all have it?

Actually mankind was created to be confident before God. It is part of our divine design. Without confidence before God, mankind is incomplete and dissatisfied. Looking at Adam before the fall, we see man comfortable in his position with God. He knows he is the created and not the Creator. He is the working partner of project earth. He enjoys fellowship with God in his naked state. Then, of course, we have an even better picture of model man, Jesus. He is the last Adam and reveals man as comfortable in fellowship with the Father and confident in His role of carrying out the Father’s plan. This is our hope. We have been granted by grace to have the same relationship with the Father that Jesus has and that Adam had before his choice to usurp God’s position.

The tragedy of sin is that it robs us of all confidence before God. Now any confidence based on anything other than grace is not only false confidence but an idol standing in the place of our practical worship. Sin made mankind’s default mode that of shame. The dead give-away clue for shame is the insatiable need to fix ourselves. We want to "look" better both inside and outside. Americans spend billions of dollars each year on psychological therapy in an attempt to fix what is wrong internally. Sadly, many churches have turned to psychology to find the self improvements the congregants demand without ever presenting the gospel of transformation found in Jesus. Billions more are spent on physical improvements from exercise to face lifts to tummy tucks, etc. Some work on the soul, and some work on the face in the never-ending attempt to cover the effects of shame. If we can’t be confident, we must at least look confident.

We have also found plausible substitutes for confidence. For instance, we have discovered that control works for awhile when confidence is not available. If we can just get everyone on our page— manipulation, guilt, fear—anything will work to get our agenda on top. We complicate matters even more when we do all this in the name of LOVE. Even our love got bent in the fall. Now we can’t even do that without a selfish intent. We worship for our benefit. We work for our resources. We play for our pleasure. We love in order to get our way. And we take some sense of confidence in our ability to manipulate others with our selfish love. We sometimes even convince them we are doing them a favor. They seem appreciative of our benevolent attempts to control things for their benefit.

Because of the bent life resulting from the fall, life disappoints. It hurts! There are fears we can’t even locate and seem never to conquer. Things often don’t produce what they promised. Marriages which promise such possible bliss can be the instrument of great pain. Church life which offers the possibility of community and grace can deal unbelievable pain. It is not difficult to become cynical and hard. Instead of being like the child who wakes wide-eyed on Christmas morning expecting to see the fruit of Santa’s visit, we become critics of all mystery and judges of those who dare to risk believing the miraculous. When God won’t fit our mold, it is irritating at best and sometimes devastating.

Sarah had seen God answer prayers before. Now John was diagnosed with cancer. She gathered her Christian friends around her and with bolstered faith she was sure God would heal him. For months they prayed. Many came with encouraging words and prophecies. They expected a miracle right up until his death. The funeral was over, and the friends were gone. Alone with disappointment, Sarah decided it was all a farce. God had not come through for her. Maybe all the bible stuff was as unstable as his healing. She began to look outside the Christian community for her friends and fun. She met a man who gave her special attention. He was married, but maybe that was another of those unworkable rules in God’s restrictive code. God hadn’t worked for her. Why should she work for him? She had confidence now. She was free from the restraining rules of religion and confident in her liberation. Whatever made her happy was the only criteria for decisions. All those who loved her noticed that her happiness was sad. They grieved the loss of the wide-eyed child of God who could risk the faith in a God who is good but uncontrollable.

This story is not new. It could be told by all of us. As one writer stated it around the Easter celebration: "We are called to live as Easter people in a Good Friday world." Life is painful at times but always redeemable. The gospel of Jesus promises us that nothing outside of his control will ever touch us and that all things will be woven into a tapestry that glorifies the Son. When our pain is greater than our desire to glorify him, we all fall prey to anger and disappointment. That alone doesn’t disqualify us for redemption. In fact, it is much better than retreating into a religious rebellion that refuses to acknowledge pain and covers it with bibleverses and church activities. God never seems upset with our complaints about his sovereignty. He has provided grace for hurting people. He gets to show one of his favorite traits when we come to him in need. He displays mercy.

It is common for those who turn to religion rather than the secular world for comfort in disappointment to define life in terms of rules and morals. It seems that when life hurts we want to simplify it. Afraid to confront God about the perceived injustice he is allowing, we turn life into a series of religious practices that must be followed. These people look as sad as Sarah. Their confidence is in the law and that will never produce confidence before God. This false confidence saps the energy from all that God gave to make life full and reduces it to the plain and ugly self-righteousness that smears God’s glory in the dirt of self-made religion. In his book, Agape Road, Bob Mumford quotes this poem by Robert Service,

THE MAN WHO KNEW

The Dreamer visioned Life as it might be,

And from his dream forthright a picture grew

A painting all the people thronged to see,

And joked therein--till came the Man Who Knew,

Saying: "This is bad! Why do ye gape, ye fools!

He painteth not according to the schools."

The Dreamer probed life’s mystery of woe,

And in a book he sought to give the clue;

The people read, and saw that it was so,

And read again—then came the Man Who Knew,

Saying: "Ye witless ones! This book is vile:

It hath not got the rudiments of style."

Love smote the Dreamer’s lips, and silver clear

He sang a song so sweet, so tender true,

That all the market-place was thrilled to hear,

And listened rapt—till came the Man Who Knew,

Saying: "His technique’s wrong; he singeth ill,

Waste not your time." The singer’s voice was still.

And then the people roused as if from sleep,

Crying: "What care we if it be not Art!

Hath he not charmed us, made us laugh and weep?

Come, let us crown him where he sits apart."

Then, with his picture spurned, his book unread,

His song unsung, they found their Dreamer---dead.

There are no dreamers among the self-made religious. Life is too serious for dreaming. It must submit to the unkeepable laws of a morality unknown in heaven.

But we can have confidence before God! It is found "in Christ." That means we have what he has. Nothing more, nothing less. Several texts from Hebrews encourage us about the available confidence we have in Christ.

Hebrews 3:6 (ESV)

The context here is the contrast of the old economy and the new. Moses’ house was the nation of Israel and its culture. Moses, as great as he was, only represented a servant in the house. Jesus is the Son in the house, and we are part of the new order of things. We have the standing of sons, and the confidence that is the fruit of that standing. Greater than Moses! Not bad. In Moses’ house the focus was on laws, land, temple, and city. In the new house the focus is on Spirit, resurrection, church, and world. Our inheritance is more than land. We get everything Jesus is.

Hebrews 4:16 (ESV)

The subject here is the confidence we have because Jesus is the final high priest. He has made the eternal sacrifice and stands as the everlasting priest before God on our behalf. We are as qualified before God as Jesus’ priestly work makes us. That is enough.

Hebrews 10:35 (ESV)

The context here reveals the need to persevere. God will ultimately vindicate his plan and justice will be final. He has given us this confidence by raising Jesus from the dead. The down payment of his Holy Spirit guarantees the success of his redemptive plan where all things will be put to rights. Jesus promised during his stay on earth that the enemies of his people would be judged in that generation. They were. In 70 AD, the unbelieving Jews were destroyed by the Romans. Later, the Romans were destroyed. One day all the enemies will be exposed and justice will reign because the Judge has already come.

When the delays seem interminable, and injustice seems to be winning, we need the confidence that time is only serving the purposes of God who has guaranteed his redemption. In the meantime, we can enjoy the success of agape as the power of the cross turns enemies into disciples of Jesus. We can now love without the bent of unavoidable selfishness. We have the confidence that God loves us and that we can love with his power. Like children on Christmas morning we can wake each day with the wide-eyed expectation that God will confirm our message and mission with accompanying signs. Confidence before God has been restored as we are reconciled to God. Free to be the men and women God had in mind when we were created!