Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. | 1 Peter 5:6-7
I used one of my favorite phrases again this week: humble confidence. This concept is one that I keep coming back to in Scripture, as God continually works through people who sacrifice greatly for His sake. Who see the reward as worth the risk. There are three aspects to shaping this humble confidence in us:
GOD IS SOVEREIGN
You cannot have this sort of approach to life without a strong trust in God’s mighty hand. The only way that you can put yourself out there, let go of control, is to believe that God is at work in the midst of the world. If God is present and active, then you can begin to let go of your tight grip on all details of life, to cast all of your anxieties on Him, because He is there to carry them.
GOD IS LOVE
You can also not let go of control unless you believe that God is on your side. Power is only a positive if it is working in your direction. This is where it gets hard, because we have this nagging, consistent doubt that we belong to God. We wonder whether He is for us or against us. In the uncertainty, we choose the safety of our own way. How can we get past this? The only way to be confident in the love of God is to experience it. The only way to experience it is to test it. The declaration: He cares for you, is great, but only if this care plays out; the only way for it to play out is to act on what God says.
GOD IS PATIENT
When God announces Himself to Moses as He passes by (Exodus 34), He says this:
The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness (6)
Along with these powerful traits (merciful and gracious), we get these descriptors that relate to time: slow, steadfast, faithful. What we see in this is that God’s good is not immediate. His love for us does not always show itself in the moment. One of the most wonderful things about Him is that He has an eternal view. It is why we can cast our anxieties on Him, knowing that He has a means of using difficulty for good. We can find hope in the midst of struggle, knowing that the future promises a fulfillment the present doesn’t have. As Peter urges us to focus on above: so that at the proper time he may exalt you.
You can’t will yourself to be patient; you have no ability to be less temporal than you are. What you can do, what the Bible continually calls us to, is to stick with God long enough to see Him work. To keep acting in humble confidence so that you are still there when God work things together for good.
This is one of those chicken/egg scenarios. The way to grow in humble confidence is to practice humble confidence. Our growth in God comes from being in relationship with Him and living that relationship in the way that He defines it. We trust Him more as we see trust in Him rewarded. We are humbled when things take longer than we think. We love Him as we see His love for us. As a pastor, I wish there was an easier way. I want the proof to be on the front end, providing a convincing argument that doesn’t require people to risk. That would not build humility nor would it require faith. Yet again, God works His way for a reason.