After reading your comments and emails last week week, I’m so encouraged by how God interrupted what I was doing and prompted me to check on you. That prompting led me to invite you on an unplanned journey through my 7-day Doubt Diet. Over 4000 of you signed up, and hundreds of you shared how much you needed this, at such a time as this.
Friend, God hears your prayers. He knows your needs and He is pursuing you with His love. I’m so honored that I get to be a part of what He is doing in your life. I want us to give ourselves time to let God speak to us as we apply these devotions in our lives. So, I’ve decided to stretch the 7 days over 2 weeks, with a post every other day on weekdays only, after today. Day 2 will be posted on Tuesday, Day 3 on Thursday and then day 4 next Monday, and so on.
Each day we’ll have a key verse called “Food for Thought” and a “Doubt Diet Tip” to help us apply that day’s message. I’m praying for you, friend, and I want us all to pray for each other. Let’s pray that no matter how hard life is or how much doubt tries to weigh us down – we will ask God to help us know and rely on His love and live in the security of His promises – so we can lose the weight of self-doubt and gain a confident heart!
_______________________
Day 1: Don’t Throw Away Your Confidence
Taken in part from Chapter 1 and 6
© 2011 by Renee Swope with Revell Publishing.
Food for thought: So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. Hebrews 10:35-36, (NIV)
One night I was cleaning the kitchen and threw away this little rubber thingy that was on our counter top. Suddenly I realized it was the power button for our TV remote control. As I dug through the trash to find it, I regretted how quickly I’d thrown it away. Then, as I reached to pull it out, I sensed God showing me that’s how easily I throw away my confidence—without even recognizing it.
It’s usually very subtle. Sometimes I’ll be thinking about something I want to do or sense God calling me to, and a feeling of uncertainty comes over me and whispers to my heart: You can’t do that. You’re not good enough. Out of the blue, I’ll just get that awful, insecure feeling.
Too many times I’ve gone along with it, tossing my confidence into the trash without even thinking about it.
For the longest time, I didn’t tell anyone about my lack of confidence because I figured if I told them all the reasons I doubted myself, they’d see my flaws and agree with me. Honestly, I was convinced I was the only one who struggled with doubt.
However, I didn’t call it doubt. Maybe you don’t either. Sometimes I called it worry—worry that I was going to disappoint someone, worry that I might make a mistake and get criticized for it, worry that I might start something but not be able to finish.
Other times I’d call it fear—fear that I wouldn’t measure up, fear that I’d look stupid, fear that I’d look prideful thinking I could do something special for God. What I’ve realized over the past several years is that these feelings may end up as fear or worry, but their source is self-doubt.
Looking back, I see a pattern in my thinking that led to the pattern of my doubting.
As a child I thought I wasn’t worth keeping. My insecurity kept me from riding amusement park rides, because I doubted my dad would wait for me. In school, I doubted I was smart enough and avoided some great opportunities because they came with the risk of failure. As a young bride, I doubted my husband’s faithfulness, although he gave me no reason to fear. Our newlywed memories include a lot of arguments about trust.
What about you? Do you ever agree with the whispers of doubt and throw away confidence that should be yours as a child of God? Are you tired of questioning whether you have what it takes to become the woman you want to be, or the woman God is calling you to be?
The first step to living with a confident heart is for us to recognize the power we give to self-doubt, then stand up to it and claim the confidence that is ours through Christ. That is what we’ll be doing for the next seven days as we learn to live in the security of God’s promises in our everyday lives.
To get started, let’s ask God to show us when we throw away our confidence this week, and help us throw off the weight of our insecurities instead.
Lord, I want to become a woman with a confident heart in Christ. Show me how to recognize when I’m tempted to throw away my confidence. And please help me throw away my insecurity instead. I want the reward of persevering in Your truth so that when I have done Your will, I will receive what You have promised. I don’t want to be a woman who shrinks back and is destroyed but one who believes and is saved. When doubt or insecurity tells me I can’t do something, I will remember that all things are possible to her who believes. In Jesus’ name, Amen. (See Hebrews 10:35–36, 39; Mark 9:23)
Doubt Diet Tip: When you start a diet or physical training plan, experts recommend you take a Body Mass Index analysis to determine if you are overweight, underweight, or in a healthy weight range. As we get started, our first assignment is to complete the FREE “Doubt Index Analysis” I created to help identify your most common doubts, see how they affect you and determine just how much self-doubt could be weighing you down by.
Let’s Talk: I want this to be a journey we take TOGETHER, where we talk to each other, encourage and pray for one another and talk about what God is showing us. To do that, please click here to go back to my website (if you’re reading this via email) and then click on “Share Your Thoughts” below this Day 1 post.
That’s where we’ll share our hearts, our stories, our struggles (so others can know they’re not alone and so we can pray for each other) and read others stories too. I believe that is where real community and encouragement will come – and Jesus will meet us there and minister to us through one another!
Discover more from Renee Swope
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Thank-you for offering this again. I saw it over the summer, and I just didn’t make the time to devote to this. But I’m ready to work through this now and be confident in the Lord! I struggle with fear and doubt and don’t want Satan sneaking in and working in my areas of weakness! I want to be the woman God has called me to be!!
Hi again. I shared above, but had to pop back with a little encouragement. I’ve just been listening again to an audio version of C.S. Lewis’ wonderful story, “A Silver Chair,” and was reminded of a blog post I wrote some months ago about how that story reawakened me to my real identity. Rereading the post now, I am struck again by this wonderful promise: the One who holds us is passionate about setting prisoners free! He will give us the freedom for which we’re praying. Here’s the link to that post if anyone wants to read more: http://hearingtheheartbeat.com/2011/04/13/when-you-forget-who-you-are/
Renee,
Thank you again for taking the time to do this 7 DD again! It does my heart so much good to read other womens posts and to see that I don’t suffer alone. Some days are better than others with the confidence. I just wish I could get to the day when I can feel secure about who I am in Christ without having to constantly remind myself. I wish I could just accept God’s love and grace and live in HIS peace.
I don think I’ve ever been hit so hard with doubt and feelings of ineffectiveness as I have in the past week. I serve as Christian Ed Director and desire to see people grow in their relationship with Christ not just “be saved”. The past weeks I feel like the people I serve are just going through the motions and I wonder if what I’m doing makes a difference. Today not a single teen was sure they were going to heaven, including mine, this broke my heart, we- Pastor and myself-have worked so hard to teach them about eternal security and they all thought they “probably” will go to heaven. I cried before service and once again doubted if what I do makes a difference or matters.
I recently began seminary, my 3rd degree, but it is so hard for a full time working mom and I wonder if I heard God right. doubt, fear, feelings of inadequacy or rampant right now and all I can think is God must be about to do something mega in my life and the enemy doesn’t want it to happen. Please pray for me, I know that’s the only thing that will work.
Danielle:
Don’t give up on those kids! At least they feel secure enough to express their doubts. Remember too, how teens will often answer “with the crowd.” (They work really hard at not being different!)
I too work with kids at my church from 1st to 6th grade. I often wonder whether any of what I am doing is working. So I know just how you feel.
I think it is so brave of you to be going to seminary on top of everything else. Bravo! God has great plans for you! I’ll be praying for you. Blessings on your ministry to help people grow in their relationship to Christ!
Thank you for doing the 7 day doubt diet again. Self doubt is my biggest enemy. It’s so bad now that I don’t believe that I can do anything right…. Down to the way I make lunch for the kids, the way I do laundry, the way I show love to my husband and Kids. I feel like I fail at every turn. I know I need more of Gods word about who I am but I’ve started to doubt that God could even love me. Please pray for me as I go through the doubt diet that I would be freed from all of these lies.
In Jeremiah 1:5 God tells you that “Before I formed you, Elaine, I knew you. Before you were born, I set you, Elaine, apart;…”
God loves you, Elaine, He loves you soooo much! He emptied heaven for you. Jesus shed His precious blood for you, Elaine.
“He anointed you, set His seal of ownership on you, and put His Spirit in your heart as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.” 2 Cor. 1:21,22
“Such confidence as this is ours through Christ before God. Not that we are competent in ourselves, but our competence comes from God.” 2 Cor 3:4,5
I hope some of these verses help you.
I am just so happy right now to finally identify the source of my problem with growth and change, I hated change and avoid it at all cost, which is probably why I take really good care of everything I can remember as far back as grammar school never raising my hand to answer a question unless I was sure it was the right answer. I seldom raised my hand and far too often I knew the right answer but fear alwaysl caused me to doubt myself. I did poorly on an entrance exam for a highly ranked high school; Two thirds of the exam was blank because I could not proceed to the next question until I was absolutely sure my answer was correct, and of course time ran out. As I got older I vowed to never get married because men were incapable of being monogamous so why bother, perhaps it’s was just my way of covering up the fact that I didn’t feel any man would find me worthy. At any rate I’m so thankful that the Lord has been working with me and has blessed me with this opportunity to shed more of the self-doubt that still weighs me down and causes me to stay stuck in situations that keep me feeling miserable. Renee thank you so much for allowing God to use you in such a way. May we continue doing that which is pleasing to our Lord and Savior, and may He continue to show up in our lives.
Love,
Diane
This devotional is going to reinforce some areas that I have been working out with God for sometime now. As a matter of fact my husband preached today on the power of words; he used an example of how when I was in highschool and failed my maith class in 9th and again in 10th grade; I was told that, “I would never pass it, that I would never get math and should just drop it, I didnt need it anyway.” Those words stuck with me all throughout my life even though I never really thought about it. Until I was toying with the idea of going back to school and when I found out that taking core classes, math was a requirement, well I almost gave up on the whole idea. I did go through with the class, wound up having panick attacks and severe anxiety, but ultimately passed the class with an “A”. That is just one example of the doubt that has been creeping into my life over the years. Having been in an emotionally and verbally abusive relationship for 15 years helped alot as well. I now am married to a very loving godly man, and with his support and strength with God, and back up from friends, family and this wonderful book; I have come a very long way; but occasionally the shadows of the past allow the doubt to try to take over and sometimes it can be a major struggle; but over time it has become much easier.
I experienced this loss of confidence today. I told a friend of mine that I can’t teach a lesson for the ladies classed church because “I am not worth it.” she talked me out if this though later tonight. I don’t feel like teaching because I failto let God’s light shine through me. But isn’t this just what Satan wants, menot teaching God? Oh, my…. I am getting my confidence back (a little.) pray for me to not be a coward…
Anxiety and self-doubt have always been a massive struggle for me. At one point a psychologist told me that I was so anxious I would never make a real difference in the world and would never connect with anyone on any significant level. Still, by grace, in the past I’ve refused to let fear make my decisions. I finished my medical training and spent four and a half years working in Afghanistan. Then I crashed with a relapse of a chronic physical illness, and probably significant burnout too. I’ve been home for three years now and am slowly getting back on my feet. God has taught me a lot about Himself and about myself in the past three years. He’s redirecting me from medical work to a different sort of ministry. . . one in which I’m much less in control (and that’s saying a lot, since there was little I had control over in Afghanistan!) I’m excited by what God is doing and want to share what He has given me with others. But self-doubt still often haunts me. Despite encouragement that my blog has been helpful to people, now that I sense God calling me to write a book, self-doubt keeps setting in. Can I do this? Who will want to read it? Can I trust that I’m hearing correctly what God is calling me to do? . . . and yet somehow I know this is what God is asking and I am choosing to face into the fear and trust Him and write. Thank you, Renee, for being faithful to follow God through your own struggle with self-doubt and now to share what He has given you with us. You are an encouragement.
I have struggled with self-doubt, most usually disguised as fear, for as long as I can remember. I am a couple of days away from turning 51 years old and I would so like to move past this and become the woman God wants me to be. My score was 122 and when I read the category description for this number it was spot on. I am so looking forward to working through this 7-day Doubt Diet and shedding some of this weight!
I took the tet and found that I am in the middle. simetimes I feel confident and other times I feel unconfident. I came to Know Jesus when I was 64 years old so I have a lot of years behind me and a lot of instances where I had absolutely no conficence. Jesus has given me confidence through Him. I no longer always feel like I can’t do this or that. Here is where my real lack of confidence lies, IN THE THINGS I CAN AND SHOULD BE DOING FOR JESUS, LIKE SHARING AND TELLING PEOPLE ABOUT HIM. I am so unconfident in these areas that I literally can not go out and even try unless I go with someone else who is either confident or more confident then me. For me it is a battle with the enemy and it keeps me from doing the things I want to do for Christ. My hope is that this 7 day diet will help me to see how I can be totaly confident in Jesus or at least get me started toward that goal. Thank you Renee for giving us this time and sharing these things with us. Bless you
I thank God for you Renee, and how He is going to use you to help me, and many others!
When I was 4, I had polio which affected both legs and my right arm. Looking back, I see how God loves me and uses difficult situations to bring us to Him. Yet, I fall back into the pattern of thinking that I am broken and inadequate. I learned to walk, by God’s grace, and led a “normal” childhood, got married right out of HS and had 5 children. After 15 yrs of a very mentally abusive marriage, I divorced and raised the kids. I went to college and received an associates degree, then worked for 10 yrs. before I remarried. Then, i was diagnosed with Post Polio Syndrome and began a physical decline. My husband died after 15 yrs. with a massive heart attack. Then, after a year, I moved in with one of my 4 daughters. Now, I am 70. I walk with a cane, small distances and I can drive short distances to church activities, the Dr. and the pharmacy. My daughter and her husband lead a very busy life so I rarely leave my room. I scored 156 on the Doubt Index Analysis. It was difficult to admit to myself that I should take your self doubt test.
I have lived with self doubt and lack of self worth all my life. I am working through the process of gaining confidence. Funny how it use to be so easy to tell my first graders that any one of them could learn to read… if they just believed! But I have trouble following those words myself. I have put myself in the midst of some richly blessed ladies… “Jesus Girls” if you will… and I am learning that my lack of confidence is Satan’s way to weasel in… to redirect me. Thank Goodness, I am recognizing this and learning to believe in God and His love, His support in my life. I have thrown away so much in the past… I am looking forward to holding on, knowing that with God’s help, I can accomplish my goals.
WOW, what a testimony. I have lived my whole life with considerable self doubt. Starting when I was very young, and still as I struggle with Multiple Sclerosis, and living alone after being divorced many years. I never really put my thoughts on the table till after reading the book and doing parts in the Bible Study. I recognizes God is with me every step of the way. There are times I don’t understand why things happen, but it makes me a better person, and a powerful example of what one can be like with God in their life and heart. Please keep the positive thoughts of living and growing to help enhance my self confidence. I still have a lot to learn, but my journey with the Lord is where it is at for me.
Thank you
Thank you for allowing God to use you and give me and others insight today. I am always thinking I am not good enough, not smart enough or whatever. This week I am taking a test that will benefit me with my employment. I am studying and feel good as I take the review questions but the closer the date get to test I feel overwhelmed, not smart enough or too old to learn. Today you have helped me so much. I feel better just knowing I am not alone and reminded that ALL Things are Possible for Those who Believe. and this scripture is awesome!!
So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. Hebrews 10:35-36, (NIV)
Thank you
Belief!
Thank you, Renee, for your faithfulness and willingness to share your own weaknesses so others can learn and grow with God too. I am in my mid forties and have struggled with doubt and people pleasing my whole life. I have allowed myself to fall back into old ‘normal’ patterns from when I was young. None of it is normal and none of it is God’s best. I pray that this time, I will move forward and allow God to bring the healing I need through your encouragement and sharing. Thank you so very much and God Bless you Abundantly!!
PRAISE GOD FROM WHOM ALL BLESSINGS FALL!!!!!!!!! That blessing is this study and you Rene for following God’s conviction to present it. I have always felt confident and very close to God but due to a horrible situation that happened in our family 2 years ago doubt, anxiety, fear and isolation have all but taken over. I hold Jeremiah 29:11 very close to my heart and know that God doesn’t leave us. Thank you again for following God’s nudging.
Today was the most perfect day for this to start with the most perfect verse for where I am at. Lately I have been struggling because I have followed what God has wanted for me and so far, it isn’t making any sense. There is more stress for me than before and I just don’t understand how I am to do anything else that I know he is calling me to do. I am afraid that things will go just as poorly if I follow the path I am being led on. To make matters worse, someone very close to me is in the same dilema but over a different situation. How do you hold onto your confidence when everything is going so badly? The second half of that verse today really jumped out and bit me. Thank you so much.
I’m usually pretty confident. But, lately I struggle with allowing others to make me feel inadequate and question myself. I have been married to a wonderful man for 27 yrs. We have raised 3 children who are all married and have children of their own, or are expecting a child. I worked as an Administrative Secretary at a public school for 17 yrs. I quit that job thinking that I needed a change. Well, little did I know that my world was going to change a lot. Before May 2008, it was just the 5 of us in my sweet, loving family. Now, since May 2008 my family has grown from just 5 to 13 (expecting our 5th grandchild (#13) in May 2012). Also, in May of 2010 I became a first time college student. Really, what was I thinking! All these things are very exciting and extremely wonderful. I love my family and how it has grown. But, with growth came a lot of chanllenges, new personalities to learn and get along with. We are still a very close-knit family, and the additions to the family fit wonderfully. But, being a wife, mother, mother-in-law, grandmother (memaw), and a college student, in just a short period of time has taken me on a whirl-wind adventure that I never seen coming. It’s very important to me to be a good memaw and mother-in-law, but the mother-in-law is a challenge. So far, there has not been any problems, except that I’m overly concerned about keeping everyone happy, without regard for my own personal health and well-being. I put aside my own personal time to enjoy my husband, my crafts, and homework, which I usually have to stay up late to finish. The problem is I try to be “SUPER WOMAN” to please everyone else because I fear being seen as not good enough, not making the grade. I don’t have close friends to talk with, so I keep everything that I’m feeling and going through to myself. I hang on tight to my Savior, He is the only one that knows. I’ll be looking forward to receiving your devotions. God Bless ~
Hello Beverly – haha! another grandma in college. I have been a student for four years in LU’s online college and will graduate in march 2012 with a psyc degree in counseling. I had no idea how I would accomplish it but so many other horrors have happened that the schoolwork has been the only constant and stable thing over these years. I don’t have alot of close friends either so lets get to know one another. I have been the person everyone depended on and now that has flipped over and I need new friends who can stand the “new” me!
Thanks Renee,
I really needed this at this time in my life. I am very doubtful about my marraige and my family. I worry about being able to keep it all together – I truly hope that this will help me. Thank you so much this will be very inspiring.