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Self-confidence—a word which defines itself. Would you describe yourself as a person with good self-confidence? Are you confident about your abilities and talents, your accomplishments and experience? The world says you have to have self-confidence in order to succeed, especially in the business world.
When I think of a very self-confident person, I think of the Apostle Peter. Now, here was a man very confident in himself. He was the only disciple who was confident he could walk on water. He was confident in his fishing abilities and knowledge. He was confident that Jesus was wrong to say he was going to die and rebuked him for it. He was totally confident that he, Peter, would never deny Jesus, even if everyone else did, even if he had to die with Jesus.
Peter did not lack self-confidence. However, all that self-confidence failed him at the critical moments of his life. He began to walk on water but very soon started sinking. Self-confidence didn’t keep him up. Self-confidence didn’t fill his empty nets with fish after a long night of fishing. Only when he followed Jesus’ instructions was he able to catch fish. Though he was very confident in rebuking Jesus, Jesus not only did not take his counsel, but considered it to be satanically inspired. And within hours of his most confident assertion that he would never deny Jesus, he did so three times with cursing.
Peter’s example tends to give self-confidence a black eye. We’ve been led to believe that self-confidence is the key to success, but Peter’s experiences could cause one to lose confidence in self-confidence.
But, thank God, that’s not the end of Peter’s story. We see a transformed Peter in the book of Acts. He was still extremely confident, still assertive, still a leader, but the results were very different
If you’ve been struggling with your own self-confidence, Peter’s experience should come as very good news for you today. You really don’t need self-confidence, but you do need God confidence, and you can have that.