The Confident Woman: Start Today Living Boldly and Without Fear by Joyce Meyer
Book: The Confident Woman: Start Today Living Boldly and Without Fear by Joyce Meyer
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Authors: Joyce Meyer
Tags: Religión, General, Self-Help, Personal Growth, Christian Theology, Sexuality & Gender Studies, Christian Life, Women's Issues, Self-Esteem
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one believes to be right will always increase confidence. You can’t go wrong when you keep God as the focus of your life. Follow the example of the Proverbs 31 woman. She gives us tremendous insight in how to be the best and most confident homemaker, wife, and mother we can be.
Chapter Six
OVERCOMING SELF-DOUBT
P ut on a coat or a jacket and have someone tie your wrists together. Then try and take off your jacket. It can’t be done, can it? That’s what happens when you struggle with believing in yourself, when you let fear and self-doubt tie you up in knots. It’s pretty much impossible to succeed! Self-doubt and confidence don’t work together, they work against each another. Confidence will destroy self-doubt but self-doubt will destroy confidence.
Self-doubt is tormenting. The woman who doubts herself is unstable in everything she does, feels and decides. She lives in confusion most of the time and wrestles with making decisions and sticking with them because she is forever changing her mind just in case she might be wrong. A confident woman is not afraid of being wrong! She realizes she can recover from making a mistake and doesn’t allow the fear of making one to imprison her, or tie her up in self-doubt.
In the Bible, James 1:5–8 teaches us that God cannot answer the prayers of a double-minded person. God responds to our faith, not our fears. Self-doubt is fear. Fear that we will make mistakes or do the wrong thing. It often goes beyond being afraid one will do the wrong thing; more often it involves how people feel totally wrong about themselves. They carry a deep-rooted shame and just can’t seem to accept themselves or have confidence in their decision-making ability.
Probably right about now you may be thinking, “Well, Joyce, I really can’t help how I feel. I wish I felt confident but I just don’t.” What I am getting ready to say to you may be one of the most important things you have ever heard in your life. YOU DON’T HAVE TO FEEL CONFIDENT TO BE CONFIDENT! To live in victory, each of us must learn to go beyond our feelings. I have learned that I can feel wrong and still choose to do what is right. I have also learned that I don’t have to feel confident to present myself in a confident manner.
----
We need to believe God’s Word more than we believe our feelings.
----
If I make a decision and believe it is right at the time I make it, I don’t have to change my mind later just because I begin to think or feel I might have made a mistake. If God shows me I have made a mistake then I need to change my decision, but I don’t have to bow down to every wild thought or feeling that I encounter. When Satan wars against my mind, I can open my mouth and say out loud what God’s Word says about me and you can do the same thing. “For in Him, [I] live and move and have [my] being” (Acts 17:28, pronoun substitution mine).
It is not wrong to say good things about yourself. We should say “God’s wisdom is in me and I make good decisions.” We need to believe God’s Word more than we believe our feelings. We have already established in this book that feelings can be very fickle, and they are ever changing and are not to be trusted to help us make decisions in life. Feelings in and of themselves are not evil but they certainly can and do lead people astray. Feelings are capable of giving us right information but they are also capable of not giving accurate information; therefore, we have to live deeper than emotions. God’s Word teaches us to pursue peace (Psalm 34:14, 2 Timothy 2:22, Hebrews 12:14, 1 Peter 3:11).
I have had times in life when I felt peace in my heart about a direction I was taking and yet my head argued with me. James 1:22 clearly teaches us that reasoning leads us into deception and betrayal. When we change our mind about a decision we have made, it should be because we have lost our peace about the direction we intended to take or have gained some wisdom or
Chapter Six
OVERCOMING SELF-DOUBT
P ut on a coat or a jacket and have someone tie your wrists together. Then try and take off your jacket. It can’t be done, can it? That’s what happens when you struggle with believing in yourself, when you let fear and self-doubt tie you up in knots. It’s pretty much impossible to succeed! Self-doubt and confidence don’t work together, they work against each another. Confidence will destroy self-doubt but self-doubt will destroy confidence.
Self-doubt is tormenting. The woman who doubts herself is unstable in everything she does, feels and decides. She lives in confusion most of the time and wrestles with making decisions and sticking with them because she is forever changing her mind just in case she might be wrong. A confident woman is not afraid of being wrong! She realizes she can recover from making a mistake and doesn’t allow the fear of making one to imprison her, or tie her up in self-doubt.
In the Bible, James 1:5–8 teaches us that God cannot answer the prayers of a double-minded person. God responds to our faith, not our fears. Self-doubt is fear. Fear that we will make mistakes or do the wrong thing. It often goes beyond being afraid one will do the wrong thing; more often it involves how people feel totally wrong about themselves. They carry a deep-rooted shame and just can’t seem to accept themselves or have confidence in their decision-making ability.
Probably right about now you may be thinking, “Well, Joyce, I really can’t help how I feel. I wish I felt confident but I just don’t.” What I am getting ready to say to you may be one of the most important things you have ever heard in your life. YOU DON’T HAVE TO FEEL CONFIDENT TO BE CONFIDENT! To live in victory, each of us must learn to go beyond our feelings. I have learned that I can feel wrong and still choose to do what is right. I have also learned that I don’t have to feel confident to present myself in a confident manner.
----
We need to believe God’s Word more than we believe our feelings.
----
If I make a decision and believe it is right at the time I make it, I don’t have to change my mind later just because I begin to think or feel I might have made a mistake. If God shows me I have made a mistake then I need to change my decision, but I don’t have to bow down to every wild thought or feeling that I encounter. When Satan wars against my mind, I can open my mouth and say out loud what God’s Word says about me and you can do the same thing. “For in Him, [I] live and move and have [my] being” (Acts 17:28, pronoun substitution mine).
It is not wrong to say good things about yourself. We should say “God’s wisdom is in me and I make good decisions.” We need to believe God’s Word more than we believe our feelings. We have already established in this book that feelings can be very fickle, and they are ever changing and are not to be trusted to help us make decisions in life. Feelings in and of themselves are not evil but they certainly can and do lead people astray. Feelings are capable of giving us right information but they are also capable of not giving accurate information; therefore, we have to live deeper than emotions. God’s Word teaches us to pursue peace (Psalm 34:14, 2 Timothy 2:22, Hebrews 12:14, 1 Peter 3:11).
I have had times in life when I felt peace in my heart about a direction I was taking and yet my head argued with me. James 1:22 clearly teaches us that reasoning leads us into deception and betrayal. When we change our mind about a decision we have made, it should be because we have lost our peace about the direction we intended to take or have gained some wisdom or
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