Ive been reading Isaiah at the moment. So much in the book has spoken to me and often reminds me of some pretty major parts of my life. As a kid growing up I wasn't the most popular. (My current friends will probably say that nothing has changed...) I was never in any one group of friends but just seemed to hang on the fringes of every group in the school. I could talk to the cool kids or the some of the geeky kids, but was never really excepted by either. I hung out with the sporty guys and the music guys, the science guys and the computer guys. I had friends in most year groups in the school but never had a group of friends I could call my own.
The first 3 years of my secondary school life were not great. I felt alone and nervous, I had issues at home and issues in myself (mostly related to girls...) and my way of coping was just to keep quiet and get on with it. I knew I had strength in me but never figured out how to get it out. Part of me always just assumed that in order be confident I had to be loud, extrovert and the centre of everything.
Isaiah shows us that this really isn't the case. Isaiah 30:15 says 'For thus said the Lord Jehovah, the Holy One of Israel, In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength.' Its odd that Isaiah put these 2 words in the same sentence, because as I said I always thought that quietness and confidence were total opposites.
It wasn't until I was around 14 or 15 that I started to realise that I had something to offer to the people around me and I didn't have to be on the fringes of everybody else's lives. At the time I was taken on by a few key young men from my church back in Somerset. They took me under their wings when I most needed some strong male guidance and allowed me to see that I was capable, that I mattered and that I had something worthwhile to offer. All of these are key messages for a young lad.
I grew in confidence but was still fairly quiet. I still am today sometimes and I still have a tendancy to hang on the fringes of many groups, but I have a quiet confidence, knowing that God loves me, knowing that people that I love and care for feel the same way and knowing that my life matters.
Tuesday 21 August 2007
Quiet Confidence
Posted by Adam Glass at 19:21
Labels: Living Life
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1 comment:
What good stuff to post on a blog!
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