Confidence-Building 101 for Play-It-Safers, Second-Guessers, & Extrovert Wanna-Bes
“For I absolutely know who I am, where I’ve come from, and where I’m going.”
John 8:14b
When you’re the one weighing your options—lingering where you’re comfortable or venturing out where relationships may be risky and also rewarding—confident may not be the word you’d use to describe yourself. You’ve been more likely to play it safe, stick to what you know, let only your closest few know the real you.
But sometimes your besties aren’t around. You’re busy too, so you get it. But you’re lonely. And sick of feeling alone.
Maybe being known better by those near you—the ones across the street and on that cul de sac, and catty-corner to your back yard—is worth a try.
Perhaps it’s time to meet your neighbors. To sow into friendships with people you could literally see all the time. To open up to people close enough to be a real community.
But it’ll be awkward, and I don’t do awkward.
Yeah, I’ve said the same thing too—for too many years.
Yet I wish I hadn’t waited. Wish I hadn’t taken so long to get over myself. Wish I hadn’t cared so much about hypothetical questions like why I hadn’t introduced myself sooner or why couldn’t I remember that we’ve met already.
Truth is, if they haven’t said hi yet, they probably won’t judge you for not going first. They probably wish they’d had the gumption to say hi first.
If there’s anything I’ve learned about people, it’s that we long to belong. To be seen and known. To have people we can be real with—people who have our back, people to do life with, people who are present through the highs and lows.
Jennie Allen says it this way in Find Your People:
We all crave friends in the trenches who call us midcry and whom we call midcry, friends who don’t quit and don’t judge, friends who make us feel understood, seen, and challenged and remind us of our God and our hope, friends who compel us to get out of our robes and into our lives and callings—and none of that is possible until we risk letting our walls fall.
p. 97
If you’re nodding along (or writing Amen! Amen! Amen! in the margins), let’s talk. Because it’s one thing to know what we want and another thing entirely to confidently move in that direction. Jennie gives us practical action steps for building community in Find Your People (and I could rave about her book forever and a day), but today, I’d like to focus on something that I believe is foundational to having the confidence to build community in our neighborhoods: our identity.
Who are you, really?
Our identity is the truest things about us—like where we’ve come from, why we’re here, and Whose we are. It’s our name, and it’s how we are known by the One who names us His.
Let’s look at a few of the many scriptures that speak of our identity as sons and daughters of Christ, relentlessly loved, purposefully chosen, and fully cloaked in His righteousness.
Even though you were once distant from him, living in the shadows of your evil thoughts and actions, he reconnected you back to himself. He released his supernatural peace to you through the sacrifice of his own body as the sin-payment on your behalf so that you would dwell in his presence. And now there is nothing between you and Father God, for he sees you as holy, flawless, and restored,
Colossians 1:21 TPT
And in love he chose us before he laid the foundation of the universe! Because of his great love, he ordained us, so that we would be seen as holy in his eyes with an unstained innocence.
Ephesians 1:4 TPT
Our faith in Jesus transfers God’s righteousness to us and he now declares us flawless in his eyes. This means we can now enjoy true and lasting peace with God, all because of what our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One, has done for us.
Romans 5:1 TPT
Maybe today you need to know that the names you’ve called yourself are not who you are. The labels others have given you are not who you are. The defeats, the rejections, the shame, and the pain—they aren’t you.
Who you are is who God says you are. His words are what matter. His voice is the one to pay attention to.
I’m learning that what we believe about ourselves seeps into everything we do. For example, if we believe ourselves to be insufficient, incapable, inferior—we’re going to carry those beliefs into our friendships. We’ll second-guess ourselves, dismiss ourselves, belittle ourselves.
That’s why identity matters so much. It’s the foundation, sure and steady, beneath our feet. It’s the truth that never changes, no matter how we feel at the moment or how we criticize the girl in the mirror.
The key to building confidence
Aligning our beliefs about ourselves with the truth in God’s word is key to building confidence. Listen to the sureness in Jesus’s voice when he said “For I absolutely know who I am, where I’ve come from, and where I’m going” (John 8:14b TPT).
Jesus didn’t doubt His identity. He knew with full certainty that He belongs to His Father, that His place is right next to His Father, and that He is intensely, wondrously, perfectly loved.
The trials He faced didn’t fade His knowing where and to Whom He belongs.
The rejection of others didn’t send His thoughts spinning.
He didn’t what-if Himself out of extending love, grace, and mercy to those skeptical, those undeserving, those with hard hearts and ulterior motives.
He trusted His Father, trusted the strength of their relationship, trusted the never-changing love that made a place for Him to always belong.
And He walked with purpose. He deliberately built relationships. He knew His calling and the cost.
What does this mean for us?
We too can know with rock-solid certainty who we are because our confidence is in God, not in ourselves. It’s not a blind confidence that is impervious to our own imperfections, but an unshakable knowing that God is who He says He is, so we are who He says we are.
This confidence is far from arrogance and self-centeredness. Our focus is not on ourselves—our cares and questions, imperfections and hesitations—but on the One who exchanges them for peaceful, humble, selflessness.
Let’s not mistake selflessness for putting ourselves down, because the truth is that selflessness lets other people in. It invites others into our messy stories and messy lives and messy pursuit of the fullness of God. And it takes more confidence to be real than to put on a front.
Let’s pray.
Jesus, I pray for the one who doesn’t think she’ll ever have the confidence to build community in her neighborhood. Pull her in close and remind her who she is. Lift her gaze so she’s looking at you and not her own insecurity.
I pray for the one who’s been hurt but someone else’s over-confidence. Would you help her to heal, and show her how rooting deep into You empowers her to love as You love.
I pray for the one struggling to see how beautiful she is in Your eyes. Lend her Your vision and overwhelm her with the depth of tender and faithful love for her.
In Your precious and holy name, Jesus, I pray. Amen.
Just a friend over here in your corner,
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