God-Fidence: Knowing I Can Not, But He Can

Somebody dropped a word today that I have not been able to put down. God-fidence. Not confidence. God-fidence. Knowing I can not, but He can.

I laughed when I heard it, and then I sat with it, because it is better theology than most of what gets shouted from a stage.

Here is what the world sells you. Confidence. Believe in yourself. You have got this. Manifest it. Look in the mirror and tell the man staring back that he is enough. And it works for about a week, until you run into something bigger than you, which happens roughly every Tuesday.

The problem with self-confidence is the self. You know that guy. You have watched him fold before. You have seen the inside of him at two in the morning. Building your whole house on him is like betting the mortgage on a truck you know does not always start.

God-fidence is the swap. You take all that pressure to be enough, all that weight of being the engine, and you set it down. Because you were never the engine. "Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God" (2 Corinthians 3:5). Read that slow. Your adequacy is not in you. It never was. It comes from Him. That is not an insult. That is a relief.

Now, Jesus said a thing that sounds like the worst pep talk in history until you understand it. "Apart from Me you can do nothing" (John 15:5). Nothing. A motivational speaker would get fired for that. But flip it over. If apart from Him you can do nothing, then attached to Him you can do the thing He put in front of you. The whole trick of the Christian life is not becoming strong enough. It is staying connected to the One who already is.

So what does this actually look like on a Monday.

It looks like less white-knuckling. Less pretending. You stop walking in saying "I got this" through gritted teeth and start walking in saying "He's got this," and actually meaning it. It is the difference between hauling a weight you cannot lift and handing it to Someone who picks it up with two fingers.

Paul figured this out and put it in the verse everybody quotes on their gym shirt. "I can do all things through Him who strengthens me" (Philippians 4:13). But read the line right before it, where Paul says what the "all things" actually is: "both of having abundance and suffering need" (Philippians 4:12). Stuffed or starving, flush or flat broke. It is not a promise you will win. It is a promise you will not be dropped. Through Him. Not through grit. Not through hustle. Not through you finally getting your act together. The power was never yours to muster.

Here is the part that should make you exhale. God-fidence means you can stop auditioning. You do not have to be impressive. You do not have to have it all together. You just have to know the One who does, and stay close to Him.

So go into your week like that. Not puffed up on yourself, and not crushed under yourself either. Both of those are still about you. God-fidence is about Him. I can not. He can. And He is not the least bit nervous about your Monday.

Christ is King.