Confidence is NOT Courage
I am a pretty confident person. . . usually.
I mean, I'm assuming that my words and thoughts matter to you, so I must have some sort of confidence.
I would willingly give a speech or take over leadership of a school project and would seize the opportunity to travel anywhere in the world, pretty much no questions asked. I would act in front of an audience and enjoy it with all my heart.
Maybe this is arrogance or recklessness or cockiness. . . I prefer to label it as confidence.
But there is one thing it most certainly is not.
It is not courage.
Making a fool of yourself in front of people you will never see again is not courage for me. It takes no courage on my part to
stand up in front of an audience of faceless people and give a speech, knowing that I'll most likely do a good job. It doesn't take an ounce of courage to get up in front of a theater full of people and become someone else; hide inside the costume of a character that isn't me.
But then again, what is courage? And what is confidence? And how can you be confident. . . but not courageous?
The Difference Between Courage and Confidence
Yet, our world is speedily changing to use these words interchangeably, with confidence replacing courage. The focus is pivoting to focus on one's own abilities, one's own assurances, one's own qualities, rather than something outside of them.
But, confidence is not courage. And courage is not confidence.
Returning to my earlier illustration, the definition of confidence fits me quite seamlessly. I appreciate my own qualities and find a sort of assurance in me.
Yet I am not a courageous person by default.
I find it very hard to find the ability to do something that frightens me. I do not have great strength in the face of great pain or grief. I will deliver a speech in front of people I don't know, but if I was asked to give a speech to people I know and care about their opinion, I. Would. Be. Terrified.
I can act, not as well as some but I'm not terrible, because it's not me I'm putting in front of people, it's the character. It's not my voice, or my faults, or my mistakes I'm showing the world, but a fictional, made up, not-even-real character's beliefs.
This is not courage because I'm not doing anything that frightens me.
People don't frighten me.
People's opinions about me frighten me.
It would take a lot of courage to sing and dance in front of people I knew because their opinion about me frightens me. It would not take a lot of courage to sing and dance in front of complete strangers because I don't care about them and thus I don't care about what they think of me. But, it does take a confident person to do that.
The culture around us is increasingly becoming more and more confident, in a sense, but less and less courageous. We find confidence in ourselves and our own accomplishments and our own strengths and shy away from the pain and grief and the things that scare us because we have no courage.
But we are not our own answer.
We cannot find what we need in ourselves.
The only way we can find courage is in something, Someone, outside of ourselves.
And that courage is oh, so much stronger than confidence.
Courage Is Strong, But It Is Also Hard
Think of any famous person—any historical figure glorified in history books, any missionary, any leader—and I can guarantee you that sometime, somewhere in their life, they have chosen courage over confidence.
And it was hard.
Winston Churchill chose to go against all the views of his peers in believing that Hitler was a very real threat to Europe and humanity as a whole. He chose not to be confident, using his position and power in Parliament to boost his own fame, his own ego, or his own celebrity. In reality, he was not a very confident person in the first place, with not-so-eloquent speech and a way of communicating that was very unlike by his colleagues.
But he was afraid. And he was also courageous.
One of his greatest fears was war, and yet he realized that fear and then conquered it by speaking out against Hitler and his peers that brushed off the German Dictator as unimportant. His speaking out lost his position of power in parliament, bought him many enemies, and also could have made war even more of a possibility, but he still did it because he found courage in something outside of himself—Someone outside of himself.
"Fear is a reaction," Churchill said emphatically. "Courage is a decision."
And God gives us the power to make that decision. Joshua 1:9, "Be strong and courageous, do not be afraid or discouraged for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go."
He has promised to give us that power, and this promise is manifested in hundreds of lives that have bloomed not because of their confidence, but because of their courage.
God gave Corrie ten Boom the courage to forgive one of the men who had enslaved, beat, humiliated and destroyed her humanity.
God gave Glenn Cuningham the courage to persist in his dreams to walk again—and then to run again and become one of the fastest men of his time.
God gave Harriet Tubman the courage to flee from slavery. . . and then to go back again, and again, and again to help her people.
God gave Martin Luther King Jr the courage to fight, and stand up, and keep getting up even as society around him kept pushing him to the ground.
The list could go on and on—William Willberforce, Susan B Anthony, Ghandi, Rosa Parks, Amy Charmichael—all normal, average people with terrible fears and incredible courage in Someone outside of themselves.
Fear is not something we have to fear, for "without fear, there can be no courage" (Christopher Paulini).
"I have not ceased being fearful, I have only ceased letting fear control me" (Erica Jong).
Finding the Courage to Speak Out
But, how do we apply this to ourselves? How can we channel the courage of such well-known people like Rosa Parks and MLK—I mean seriously, he even has his own holiday?!! How can I have courage like that when I'm too afraid to even stand up in front of my class and give a report??
And that's exactly it—fear is what gives us that courage.
Fear is not something we have to fear, for "without fear, there can be no courage" (Christopher Paulini).
All those people, all those famous, strong, drastically world-changing people, were afraid. Amy Charmichael was afraid of what people thought of her, and she became the first missionary to go against what everyone was telling her and become like the Indian people around her.
When we take our fears, the things in our life that we are terrified of and will avoid at all costs, and put them before our Savior, then and only then will we be able to conquer them. When we completely and totally let go and let God—when we give up our fears and let Him have control of them—that is when we, with His strength, can turn those fears into courage.
When you let go of those fears, you are letting God have them, letting God own them, and suddenly, they're not your fears anymore—they're God's. They don't control you anymore because God is in control of them. That is when our fear can turn into our power, through Christ's power.
His hands are waiting, ready to lift our fears off our backs. All we have to do is. Let. Go.
So to have courage, all you have to have is fear, and God. And if you're a Christian, you very easily have both.
There's nothing stopping us from being courageous, and strong, and world-changing, except us.
God Calls for Courage, not Confidence
And, God commands us to be courageous. God commands us to have courage over fear.
"Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; He will never leave you nor forsake you" (Deuteronomy 31:6).
"Finally, be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power" (Ephesians 6:10).
"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid" (John 14:27).
"For the spirit God gave us is not a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and self control" (2 Tomothy 1:7).
Courage is not an option—it is a command from God.
And He does not leave us ill-equipped, but gives us the very best Friend in the entire universe as our constant companion.
And when we start letting go and trusting in this Friend, this Savior who died for us, we can have God-given courage, do monstrous change in this world, and give our King a whole life of glory to Him.
So. . . Living With Courage Looks Like What?
You have to remember, you're not going to get this perfectly right, right away. "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness" (2 Corinthians 12:9). We have the maker of the universe on our side—I mean, what do we even have to fear in the first place?!!!
And yet Jesus also promised that "in this world you will have trouble" (Mathew 16:33)
If the verse ended there, we would have nothing to put our courage in. We would only have confidence—self-assurance in ourselves. But it doesn't end there. The verse goes on to say, "but take heart. I have overcome the world."
And it is in that"I have overcome the world" that we find our courage. It is assurance, not in ourselves, but in that Overcomer. We can be strong and give up that fear because Jesus promised that life is going to be hard, and yet He is here. He is with us. He will give us power over fear. He will give us courage.
There's only one way you can live with courage—live outside of yourself and in the power of Someone else—and that is by trusting in Him.
You have to trust in Him, let go of your fear, and totally and completely let Him have control over those fears, realizing that when you give Him the fear He can turn it into power.
Live in the Word. Know what it says. Love it. Memorize it.
It's a love letter from your King to you, what excuse do you have for not reading it???
And through that, you will grow closer to your Savior, learn to trust Him more, and thus let go of your fears faster and easier, letting your Father transform your weakness into His power.
When you come to realize that every step of every day of your life, you have a King, a Savior, and a Friend who loves you enough to die for you right beside you, no matter what, there's nothing that you can't conquer with Him.
There's no fear that can't be given to Him.
You will be filled with unmeasurable courage.
He died for us.
And we can find so much courage in that.