Did ya’ll totally relate to Renee’s story?  (Get your free devotion here.) I can totally relate.  Several years ago, a friend was helping me clean out the playroom.  We were on a serious mission to get rid of junk – if anything looked like a Happy Meal Toy, part of a toy we coudn’t find or something totally random it was going in the trash.  Fast forward a couple of weeks, we have a blow up bed that we set up when our families visit.  Guess what?  One of those “totally random” pieces that we threw away.  Well, not so much……..it was the valve.  (We had to buy a new one)  Much like Renee’s example, I thought that little piece was insignificant and threw it away without a second thought.  It may have been small compared to the size of the rest of the bed however that valve determines the beds future.  Without it, the blow up bed was just a flat rubber rectangle.

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Renee heard God speak to her that she tosses her confidence away the same way she tossed that piece of rubber away without a second thought….. What about you?  Ouch…..Guilty as charged.  I too, have thrown away my confidence more times than I can count without realizing what was happening.  If you haven’t received day one yet of the devotion, the rubber piece was the power button to the remote control.
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It doesn’t take much, it could be one word from a loved one that triggers insecurity.  Everything Renee listed – the worry the creeps in and says I’m not good enough, no matter what I do I’ll never measure up. Then worry changes to fear – fear of the disappointment that is sure to follow, fear that I’m going to mess up, never finish what I started or lose something   Fear, worry, disappointment, insecurity they all lead me to one place, the road of self-doubt.1
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Then, when Renee said,” I see a pattern in my thinking that led to the pattern of my doubting.”  It hit me, I do the same thing every time I go to Chattanooga, or Georgia to visit my mom.  I usually take the same route without thinking  about it.  I just hit autopilot and go.  Sure there are other ways, but they aren’t familiar as least I KNOW what to expect.  I do the same when fear, insecurity,worry, disappointment whatever you want to call it begins to creep.  When someone says something that hurts me, or I feel rejected what do I do?
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What about if I make up my mind one morning determined that I’m going to change everyone’s sheets and somehow life happened and I never got started.  I know what emotions are coming.   Do you?  I know that even though I home schooled my kids, washed a load of clothes AND put them away, worked, then cooked dinner it’s not those accomplishments that my mind surrenders to – it’s the one thing I didn’t do.  I’ll tell myself I’ll do better tomorrow, why can’t I be more organized, if I would just stay focused then I’d get everything done.

I know myself well enough that - no matter how much I do I always think I can do it better next time.1
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The Challenge:  Recognize when we start turning down that familiar path of self doubt to TURN AROUND!  Just like a GPS God is whispering in our ears Recalculating turn right in .8miles on Promise Lane follow it to your destination, A Confident Heart.

The following is an excerpt from The 7-day Doubt Diet:
When you start a diet or physical training plan, experts recommend you complete a Body Mass Index analysis to determine if you are overweight, underweight, or in a healthy weight range.

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)

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By the way I scored 146 on the Doubt Index Analysis.  How did you do?
154 – 110: Self-doubt comes and goes for you. When it’s present, it keeps you from all God has for you.