God-fidence

God has been speaking to me more recently about what it means to have confidence in Him aka God-fidence. Full confidence in Him, not half or part, FULL. Let me take some time to unpack what this word has meant to me and how I feel the Lord has used it to build my faith and strengthen my relationship with Him.

God-fidence means believing God for the miraculous in every situation. God-fidence means being confident in what the Lord is doing and what He is up to rather than focusing on the appearance of your circumstances. How often do we judge a circumstance by its outward appearance rather than focusing on its inward value and importance in the growth of God-fidence in our lives? God-fidence means seeing circumstances differently because you have confidence that He can bring hope and faith and salvation out of seemingly hopeless situations. God-fidence is trusting Him with your weakness and allowing Him to put His strength on display. God-fidence means taking risks! It means risking your own pride, your own comfort, and your own wants and desires to step out in boldness to tell others about Jesus. God-fidence means taking leaps of faith that don’t always look good or make sense to the world because God has spoken something so undeniably specific or has invited you into greater depths of faith. God-fidence looks like going after those things you never thought you could or would do because you know the One who makes possible the impossible.

Having God-fidence does not mean every circumstance will end up the way you wanted it or the way you hoped for. God-fidence is trusting that even when things don't turn out the way you wanted, He is still good, He is still in control, and He always has your best interest in mind. God-fidence is being confident in His character even when you don't understand what He's doing. In each opportunity we get to put our confidence in Him, we draw closer to Him in a place of surrender and brush up close with the One we are fully dependent on.

The term God-fidence is something I first heard in nursing school and I clung to it there. The number of exams, practicums, simulations, and clinicals I felt ill prepared for despite my countless hours of studying rendered my desperate need for this term during that season of my life. Much like life, nursing exams had lots of problems and questions I hadn’t prepared for and things I really didn’t think would show up on the exam! I remember saying to myself things like this, 'where in the world did this information come from?' or 'of course...the one thing I didn't study.' But as I learned to put my confidence in the Lord instead of myself, handling those unexpected ‘surprises’ seemed to get easier.

God-fidence doesn’t mean no preparation. I still prepared for my nursing exams the best I could. I still studied the book, did practice questions, and did my best to know the information. But still, every time I sat down to take an exam, I had to give up the confidence I had in all that I had done and take up the confidence I had in the Lord, knowing if it was His will for me to be a nurse, He would get me through.

Confidence is the feeling or belief that one can rely on someone or something. It is very easy for me to say that I put my confidence in Him without actually doing it or only doing it half-heartedly. This lack of full confidence usually results in half-hearted prayers and me always making sure to have a back up plan. I love the phrase “no plan B” because to me this phrase reminds me that I am going hard after the plans of the Lord and I have so much confidence in what He is going to do that I haven’t even tried to think up a plan B. He is my plan A. It can be difficult for some people who feel like they don’t have a plan A from the Lord and I understand that! I have been there too. The Lord doesn’t always give exact directions on how to get from place to place, but He always walks with us. That is the coolest thing about God-fidence. It isn’t really about what you’re doing, it’s who you are doing it with.

God-fidence can come only through an intimate relationship with the One you put your confidence in.

           The more I get to know myself (that is my flesh) I want less and less to put my confidence in myself. When I put my confidence in my own ability, I limit what can be done with my life because I am so limited. The more I get to know God, the more I desire to put my confidence and trust in Him. He is more faithful, more powerful, more full of love and wisdom than I’ll ever be, but as I get closer to Him these things bleed into the decisions I make and the way I live my life.

“Now this is eternal life, to know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, the One You sent to earth.” (John 17:3)

           When I put my confidence in God, the limits of my life are shattered, and I can walk in FULL abundance and journey with the God who is limitless.

           A quote that I think of often when I am exercising my God-fidence is this quote by Banning Liebscher from the book Rooted,

“Faith is proven at the point of our weakness and emptiness, the point where all is lost if God doesn’t show up…Nothing is worth more to God than our faith. It’s what pleases Him, and He loves to put us in situations where we can please Him. He also loves to put us in situations where we get to experience and see that our faith is genuine.”

           THIS IS SO GOOD. This is exactly what God-fidence is all about! Growing your faith to the point that you can walk into more situations where all will be lost if God doesn’t show up. I think about this quote a lot when I am making a decision that is going to take full, undeniable God-fidence. Whether it be talking to someone about Jesus, taking a financial risk, or interceding for a miracle, I think about the fact that this is what faith is all about. It is about walking into situations where my faith will be tested because God loves to show me that my faith in Him is genuine. It’s kind of like doing a trust fall with God. If He doesn’t catch you, you’ll end up on the ground. But when He does, it only builds your confidence and makes you want to trust Him more.

           So this is a challenge for you and me. Like all of the topics I talk about on this blog, this is something I am continuing to work on and see the fruit of in my life. It is a head revelation and I desire so much that it be a heart one too. Terry Looper, the author of Sacred Pace, says it best when he says, “What sometimes feels like the longest distance in the world, the distance from my head to my heart.” Lord, I pray this can be heart knowledge for me and for all who read this.

2 Corinthians 1: 8-9 “We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.”

           He raises the dead, He opens blind eyes, He does the IMPOSSIBLE. God-fidence sometimes requires us to get to the point of being under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despair life itself. However, this should happen so that we will not put our confidence in ourselves, but in God, who is the perfecter of all things. I pray you think wisely about how often you put yourself in situations where all could be lost if God doesn't show up. I pray you will practice putting your confidence in the God of the impossible and witnessing the immeasurably more that He can do through your full surrender to Him. 

♥ Melissa