My mom recently told me of a comment someone had made, that really got me thinking. I cannot remember the exact quote, but it went something like, “you sure put a lot of confidence in your shortcomings.” It got me to thinking about where my faith is, not based upon what I say, but based upon how I react to different situations, do I have my faith firmly planted in God, or do I prefer to stay rooted in my comfort zone?

Faith in God is not intended to be comfortable necessarily. I think we sometimes have the misconception that if we trust in God, everything in our lives will be peachy all the time. And if something bad happens, then we didn’t have enough faith. That’s not true. The rain rains on everyone, regardless of how much faith we have.

Confidence in God provides us with extra support when things get hard, because they always do in life. We can end up more compassionate because of the experiences we have had or more hardened. Watching my kids play sports, and watching all the kids that play with them, I have gained a new appreciation for coachable youth. I have also learned that a coachable youth usually turns into a coachable adult. When we become coachable we start to put our trust and confidence in something besides our shortcomings and realize that maybe we don’t know everything.

This comment has made me analyze the different situations I have been in recently. Some of them I have sailed through, confident that the Lord was there helping me all along the way. Sometimes I have struggles. I am sad to say, in some instances my hard experiences have not always made me compassionate, but judgmental when I hear people complain about similar situations they are in. Instead of giving advice and helping them through I have judged in my heart.

I have also not been humble enough to allow others to help me in a number of situations, instead deciding to rely upon my own strengths, even excluding the Lord to some degree, and I have made it hard on myself because I didn’t listen. I wanted to stay stuck because it was more comfortable than change. I am grateful we get to learn though, and I have now gained a new perspective. Actually not new, I am coming at the problems from a different angle. I will continue to ponder on this new perspective, but it’s been good to start thinking about it recently.