confidence intact

Therefore do not throw away your confidence, which has a great reward.

Hebrews 10:35

Lord,

This admonition has a particularly deep personal meaning today. And You, my God, know where my soul has been. I reflect back on a season where I was tempted to let my confidence in You wane. I let an unthinkable loss became a seismic soul-shift, and at times I doubted even Your goodness as questions pressed into my pain. I never stopped asking those hard questions of You, and I believe that is how I held to my confidence… my faith… my trust in Your faithfulness… my conviction that Your grace will see me home.

I have learned that asking questions, even if they come out like accusations (see the book of Job and about fifty psalms of lament for precedent), is not a sign of unbelief, but of maturity. I learned from You, my God, that You are a big God Who can answer my big questions. I learned that You are a Sovereign God Who can give and take away and give again… Whose name I can and will still bless. I learned that You are a loving God Whose love and grace carries me all the time… even when I feel like You are absent and I sense no love and spiral down into a self-pitying nightmare of darkness all alone. I never have actually been alone. You’re right here with me. Always!

My anxiety reared up and can still press hard against me in a thousand different ways. Grief can still ambush me in a moment. Yet I know these cannot steal my confidence. And I will not throw it away! You have rewarded me, my loving Savior. I am rewarded with strength. I am rewarded with a peace that accepts my losses and welcomes my new direction with confidence in the God Who in my worst season has been my strength and my song. I have a good Father Who loves me, holds me, and has given to me now a new life from the ashes. You have resurrected my hope as I find confidence in the gospel. I am grateful and confident in Christ.

Amen