Confidence. It’s an attractive character trait. It’s something most people wish they had more of. The problem is, confidence is not a stand alone, self-contained commodity. It doesn’t just exist in and of itself. It is the out-growth of what we believe about something or someone. And so, whether confidence is a good thing or a bad thing depends on the object of our confidence.
At the end of Joshua chapter 7, the Israelites appear to be confident in their past victory and their current ability. Yet in Joshua chapter 8, they are defeated at Ai. In the end, both the Children of Israel and the people of Ai were over confident, and it cost them dearly.
Joshua chapter 8 teaches us that to put your confidence in anyone or anything other than the sovereign God is to be mistakenly over confident. (Ps. 127:1-2) (Ps. 20:7-8) And yet it is so easy to be confident in our current abilities, successes, and resources. Yet anything we put our confidence in (other than our sovereign God) is fleeting, faltering, and fading. God is constant and unchanging (Malachi 3:6) (Heb. 13:8) and He is the best and only reliable object of our confidence.
We should be a confident people, but our confidence should not to lead us to defeat. It should lead us to victory, because it is a confidence in God and God alone. How are you doing with that today?