Words of Confidence

I Know I Put It Somewhere!

     Have you ever put something away in a special place so that you would be sure not to lose it? Then when you go to look for it you forgot where you put it? Did you say to yourself "I know I put this thing somewhere?" Where can it be? In your mind you are thinking "okay, I must be losing it, I purposely put it in a safe place and now I can't remember where the safe place is." We call ourselves absent-minded and the more we look, the more frustrated we become until we finally give up. Then all of a sudden when we are not even thinking about it we remember where we put it and we rush to claim it and tell ourselves we will not do that again, but invariably we do wind up doing it over and over again. It is just because there are so many things on our mind we can't possibly remember everything. But we still beat ourselves up and think we should know better by now and that we shouldn't be so absent-minded. I know this because I too have done it often, but just the other day something similar happened, but in a different context. I was asking myself where something was that I thought I had lost but instead of finding it, I was reminded of where I should have put it so I would never lose it again.

     I was sitting on the couch thinking about my confidence. It felt like I had lost it and was unable to find it again. I thought to myself, "Where is your confidence?" I was trying to find it within myself and build myself back up but I couldn't do it. It was lost and though I was searching frantically I could not find it. A few seconds later I asked myself the same question again, but with a different meaning, I said Pat, where is your confidence, where are you putting it and who are you trusting to bring you through. Immediately I was like the person who says, "oh yes, now I remember where it is, only I was saying, "Now I remember where it should be." My confidence should be in God, I placed it in His hands a long time ago and gave up my right to depend on myself. Immediately I was at peace and just like the person who finds what they are looking for I sat back and rested in Him knowing that I was safe in Him. My confidence was safe as long as it was in Jesus, the One who promises to keep us till the end. The One who promises to bring us through every trial. I did not need to fret anymore; I did not need to look all over the place, all I had to do was remember in Whom I had placed it.

      We can put our confidence in Jesus because Peter tells us in 1st Peter 5:7 "to cast all our cares upon Him, for He cares for us." The word cares on our part means, anxieties, worries, stress, but the word careth on His part means, to take care, to be interested in, to concern oneself with. Jesus is able to take care of us, He is interested in us and He concerns Himself with us. Sometimes it is hard to imagine with a world full of so many people that God is thinking about you, or that He is interested in you or concerned about you but He truly is.

     Recently a friend of mine was driving down the road thinking about her life and what would become of it. She is in the midst of a trail and recently gave her life to the Lord and put it in His hands. She knew she had made a right decision but wondered in her mind what would her life be like from this point on. Just as she was thinking this she look up and there was a sign that read, "I have a wonderful plan for you." She smiled and now had a new confidence and faith that HE was able to perfect all things in her life. Her worry and anxiety left, for now she had a promise just for her. God is faithful and when we trust Him and put our confidence in Him and set our minds on things above we will never have to worry about where we put our hope again for we will know it is in Him. We will also know that if it is in Him everything will be okay because it is His Word that carries us and it is His Word that is going to bring us all the way into eternity.