Self-Confidence?

School - the Crucible of Confidence?

I was at my second son Caleb's school for his Prefect Investiture. It was a proud moment for me, as it was for every parent who was there. Cameras were clicking away. I watched each boy striding up the stage confidently with their newly appointed leadership roles and responsibilities. It was no surprise that at the investiture the pastor preached a sermon on "Self-confidence". 




Self-Confidence - where are you?
In my mind ran a thought as I listened to the sermon: "Isn't self-confidence an oxymoron of sorts?" In this age of self-help, self-motivation and self-empowerment, it's probably politically incorrect to say that I don't believe in self-confidence. I did not have such opportunities as a child; and certainly not the confidence that this bunch of boys had. I was painfully shy growing up and socially awkward, perhaps the results of a sensitive spirit, an overpowering desire to please and merciless teasing from an uncle. Even now I still have butterflies in my stomach at social gatherings and am more comfortable in formal work situations where the relationships and interactions are clearly defined.




The Flying Bee
I've heard that apparently scientist say that bees should not be flying at all because their wings are the wrong shape*. But yet they continue to do so, a wonder of creation. I think of myself like a flying bee, that I should not be where I am at this point in life but yet I am - a miracle of sorts.


Take for example my social skills - I had serious doubts that I could ever get married. My parents also had the same doubts apparently. In my mid-twenties, they secretly sought out my friends to ask them if there was anything wrong with me and if not, could they please introduce some nice girls to me? As if things could get anymore embarrassing but at least I am thankful there were no disastrous blind dates to scar me further. 

Arnotts wafers - Yummy!

Such a match making challenge as I needed God to be the match maker. When Marie and I were both ready for a committed relationship, we caught each others' eyes. How we got together is another story about a purse and candy coloured wafers (a story I promise to tell sometime this year). Now 14 years of marriage and 4 kids later, I'm still amazed that I could be so blessed.


King David, Flying Bee No. 1
The pastor at the investiture used King David as illustration and he was indeed a good example to study. When David was just a boy, God sent the prophet Samuel to Jesse, David's father with the prophecy that a king was to be found amongst his sons, Jesse didn't even bother presenting this youngest son of his, thinking his older brothers to be more worthy of the kingship 
"And Samuel said to Jesse, “Are all the young men here?” Then he said, “There remains yet the youngest, and there he is, keeping the sheep.” 1 Samuel 16:11". David's father's actions may not have built his self-confidence but thank God that David built his confidence not in himself but in God.


We next read of David, when the Philistines were at war with Israel. He, still too young to be conscripted into the army, brought bread upon his father's bidding to his brothers on the war front. What he saw on arrival were the Israelite soldiers cowering before Goliath, a Philistine of gigantic proportions who was insulting the army of God. As a boy, no one would have blamed him if he had dropped off the bread and scurried home. Instead, he stayed and said this "Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear; this uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them, because he has defied the armies of the living God. ³⁷ The LORD who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine.” 1 Samuel 17:36-37


David, with an impressive kill list of lions and bears could have gone forth in the confidence of his own abilities but he did not say that. His trust was instead in God whom he had seen take care of him over and over again - a young boy with a faith exceeding many adults. No surprise that God had chosen him as a future king.


King Saul - crash and burn
I think it would not be wrong to say that it was a heart-sink moment for King Saul, the reigning king at that moment. Of all his soldiers, a mere boy to save the day? But he had no other volunteers. So in his human thinking, he dressed him up in human bravado. 

"He put a coat of armor on him and a bronze helmet on his head. David fastened on his sword over the tunic and tried walking around, because he was not used to them. 1 Samuel 17:38,39a

If only King Saul had learnt from God to look at the inner man and not the externals - “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” 1 Samuel 16:7. 


It was his dependence on human externals that resulted in his disastrous reign and a tragic end - a counter story to David's life.

Those who are keen can go to this website
to find the complete story of David and Goliath.
Quite good for teaching children true confidence
http://gardenofpraise.com/bibl14s.htm

David's winning formula
David, unused to these external props rejected them - “I cannot go in these,” he said to Saul, “because I am not used to them.” So he took them off. 1 Samuel 17: 39b


As the oft-told story goes, David picks up his trusty sling and with a practised shot, sank the stone into Goliath's head and killed him; thus winning the battle for the Israelites and defending God's name.

God, keeps me in-flight at work

Once colleagues, now friends

I know that some of you reading this blog are people I have worked with, even supervised. Whether you perceived it or not, there were times at work that I was silent when I should have challenged the situation, over-reacted when I should have kept my cool, at times used anger and impatience unnecessarily. I put on these external bravado as a means of hiding my own lack of confidence in handling the situation. What I should have done instead was to throw of these useless external props and learn to move in confidence in God's care, just as David did in facing the giant.


I did not start my career thinking or pursuing management or leadership roles. I've always thought that my career would be that of a technical specialist, managing my own performance. Yet, here I am, not just managing myself but others as well. There have also been instances, I've been told, when people were actively trying to find alternative positions for me because I stepped on their toes (aka office politics). But this bee continues to fly, not because of my own abilities but because God takes care of me.


Not Self-confidence, God-confidence
In the end, the truth is this - the Bible does not teach self-confidence. The Bible teaches us God-confidence. It constantly warns us of our fallen nature, our propensity to do the wrong thing, the constant need to strive to prove that we can accomplish something. People who have learnt God-confidence, have instead a quiet air of peace, they act with strong convictions, move with determination and yet are always meek and humble, never proud and arrogant.


Hebrews 11:32 - 34 tells us
^"32 And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson and Jephthah, about David and Samuel and the prophets, ³³ who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, ³⁴ quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies. "


And again, In Romans 8:37 - 39
³⁷ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. ³⁸ For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,^[k] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, ³⁹ neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.


So this is the God-confidence of those who have faith in Him. Chuck self-confidence and find God-confidence instead. Amen.


Epilogue:
* So apparently scientists have finally learnt how bees fly with modern science. Another wonder of God's creation. For those of you into nature documentaries, the following YouTube clip should be interesting for you!

Bee Flight, Facts about how bees fly,

Channel 9 Australia on Richard Hammonds Invisible World

A Significant Life - insights from Friends, Diapers and Lord of The Ring (LOTR)

Success and Significance
Every Chinese New Year my buddies from school gather. We've known each other for decades and catch up several times each year. It's great to know that we've been able to maintain the friendship for decades.

It's always fun when we meet and sometimes, like this last one, it was special. Amidst the laughing and the eating, in a moment of spontaneity and totally without any guile or boasting, one of the guys lifted the veil and shared with us significant moments in his career - moments that we had not previously known about.

Old friends, good food and great laughs - what could be better?

Men of Substance
This guy, he was my best friend in school but over the years with career and family demands, we've had less time for our friendship and it's changed. We're still good friends but I'm less familiar with what's happening in his life.  So this was also the first time I've heard his account of how he came to the success in his career.

Career success aside, what impressed me more from his account was how he was recognised at work for courageously speaking up for what was right, even at the risk of angering his superiors. I couldn't help but feel happy and proud for him; that his character and moral fiber were made up of good stuff. No surprise then that God would give him the opportunities to find favour in the eyes of superiors.

There are many similar accounts in the Bible as well of men who were put into significant positions, men such as Abraham, Moses, Joseph, King David, Daniel etc. These men were not perfect but each chose at significant moments to stand up for what was right in God's name; and so God gave them the privilege of being his instruments of change in society for the glory of His name and the good of society.

Stay Home Moms (& Dads) are Significant!

Who would have thought -
something so small and so cute
would take so much out of us?

Marie and I have been talking about the significance of our lives recently. Before we got married, we agreed that when the children came, she would stay home as a full time homemaker. Credit to Marie that she has been doing this for more than a decade and has run our household excellently. What would we do without her? Yet, as many women (and I guess some men too) who have chosen to stay home full-time have experienced, Marie often fights this nagging feeling that she cannot justify the significance of her work. Honestly, there is nothing quite like a new baby at home to make you wonder what life is about - how can cleaning buttocks, breastfeeding, burping, putting baby to sleep, etc., compare to a top notch corporate career?

Even for myself, I would say that I have done fairly well (from a human perspective) in my career. But even then, I catch myself sometimes worried about the wrong things.  Honestly, for a period I loathed reading the Sunday Edition of the local papers because it was just full of stories of people who had money, who were making money, who wanted to teach us how to make money. But if I blame the papers, then I have also myself to blame because I choose to believe that money brings significance (the more money the more significance) and therefore be threatened by stories in the papers about people who can afford things that I cannot.

It's Who defines Significance & Success that matters
When looked at from an earthly perspective, Jesus' time on earth appeared to end in failure. His proclamation that He had come to fulfil the prophecies of the Messiah seemingly ended in a disastrous trial, torture and death on a cross - punishment meant for common criminals. Yet three days later, He arose from the dead, once and forever defeating sin and death, showing the world the significance of His life on earth.

Marie takes good care of us!

The issue I believe is that we want to define for ourselves what should be considered 'successful' and 'significant'; and too often this definition comes from the world. What Marie and I believe is that the lives we have are from God. He has already made us significant and give us significant lives to live. We don't need work or possessions to make us significant. The crux is we don't need to create our significance, we live out the significance that has already been created for us. Of course, this is easier said than practised.

Marie strives everyday to change diapers and clean milk stains with this in mind. She sings to herself this song that we used to sing in Sunday School:
"In the house and out of doors
Brushing shoes and scrubbing floors
Baking, ironing , brewing tea,
Sometimes making hokkien mee!
I do it all for Jesus, I do it all for Jesus, I do it all for JESUS!
He's done so much for me."

LOTR - What we learn from Sam Gamgee
I end this blog with thoughts about the ending in Lord of the Ring. For those who may not be familiar with this fantastic tale from J.R.R. Tolkien (now made into 3 movies), Frodo the hero of the story, supported by his faithful sidekick Sam Gamgee, goes on a quest. Frodo bears the burden of carrying an evil ring and finally throws it down a mountain lava pit to destroy it forever.

But that is not the end of the story. Frodo it seems, changed profoundly by the experience, could not find peace at home anymore. He decides to follow the elves to disappear into the ethereal mists as they leave human lands forever. Sam Gamgee, on the other hand, the more provincial of the two, decides to stay home, marry his childhood sweet heart and have loads of kids.

In the end, whose life was more significant - Frodo, the hero of the story or Sam Gamgee the side kick? As I thought about it, I realized that given a choice, I would rather choose to be Sam Gamgee than Frodo. After all, I married my sweetheart, had lots of kids and I'm not so hot about traveling to strange lands anyway (unless there's a nice hotel). My point is, each one of us has a significant life, it is created specially by God for us - some of us are created to be Frodo-s and some are created to be Sam Gamgee-s. Each should live the life he / she has and find significance in that. I think we'll all be happier hobbits* for doing that :)

This part meant for LOTR fans or those who want to know more about Hobbits:
*Hobbits are a fictional diminutive race which inhabits the lands of Middle-earth in J. R. R. Tolkien's fiction. According to the author in the prologue to The Lord of the Rings, Hobbits are "relatives"^[1] of the race of Men. (Wikipedia)

Sam Gamgee playing his part to encourage to Frodo to press on in the face of great peril. 

As you can see in his words below, he likes a good story just like me!

"It's like the great stories, Mr Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were .. and sometimes you didn't want to know the end .. because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was, when so much bad had happened? But in the end it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines, it will shine out the clearer.

Those were the stories that stayed with you, that meant something. Even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr Frodo, I do understand . I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going...because they were holding on to something."

"What are we holding on to, Sam?"

"That there's something good in this world, Mr Frodo. And it's worth fighting for!"

A final farewell from Frodo - and back to the Shire for Sam Gamgee. 

He props his legs up, asks his wife for a nice cup of coffee and reaches for the TV remote "Ahhh...that's the life"

(ok, I made up the last part... but I think that's what I would have done if I were Sam Gamgee)