Rocks and Pots

Insecurity is for junior high girls, right? For thirteen-year-olds with braces and bad skin who feel awkward about … everything? So why do I battle insecurity? Why, at age 35, happily married and the mother of three, do I still lack confidence?

I doubt myself. Do I have what it takes to do the things God has for me? I doubt my marriage. Even though my husband has never been anything but faithful, I still fight off the whispers of, “What if he leaves?” and “What if he finally notices that I have the body of that 35-year-old mother of three?”

In everything from finances to friendship, I lack confidence. And yet, somewhere deep within, another Voice whispers, too. God’s voice calls me to faith — to a confidence not based on my abilities or worth, but on His. Child, find confidence in Me, He says. Stop doubting and believe (John 20:27).

Could I really be free of doubt? My heart is drawn to the hope of transformation. What would it be like to live without insecurity? To walk by faith, confident of who He is and who I am in Christ? In scripture, Christ-confidence is all about rocks and pots.

Rocks: Confidence on Christ

Peter wasn’t really Peter. He was Simon. Jesus gave his friend the nickname “Petros” which means “rock,” and said the Church would be built on Peter’s belief of Jesus as Christ. Later, Simon “the Rock” Peter pointed to Jesus as “the Rock” too. Peter wrote:

As you come to him, the living Stone — rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him — you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For in Scripture it says: ‘See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.’ Now to you who believe, this stone is precious.”(1 Peter 2:4-7)

My friend D.J., a builder, explained the importance of cornerstones to me. D.J. said that, in years past, a building’s foundation had to be based on its cornerstone. It was the basis for every other stone, so much so that its windows, plumbing, flooring, and anything else would be misaligned if they weren’t based on the cornerstone.

Peter’s analogy is clear. When Christ is my cornerstone, everything I build in life is on a solid foundation. Confidence comes when I build on the precious, living Stone. Not only that, but Peter goes on to say that those who have faith in Christ are “a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God” (1 Peter 2:9). Chosen, royal, holy, belonging — hardly the description of a woman who’s insecure! By faith, I am confident on the solid rock of Christ.

Pots: Confidence of Christ in Me

According to the apostle Paul, Christ-confidence is also about clay pots. “If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more,” Paul wrote to the church in Philippi (Philippians 3:4). To the believers in Corinth, Paul listed his accomplishments, and yet, Paul concluded, “I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Corinthians 12:9-10).

Christ-confidence is not arrogance, said Paul. No matter how successful I may be, true confidence is simply knowing that Christ is in me. His power is made perfect in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9).

And Christ-confidence isn’t, “I can!”, but rather, “I can’t, but God is in me, and He can!”

Paul continued, “For God … made His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us” (2 Corinthians 4:6-7). In other words, I have the very presence and power of God within, but His glory is housed in the weak clay pot of Amy Storms. Because of this, God is praised for anything accomplished through my life. It’s obvious that it is His greatness in me, and not my own.

“The Lord will be your confidence,” wrote King Solomon (Proverbs 3:26). Yet, the enemy shakes my faith. He loves to keep me more insecure than that junior high girl, because by doing so he renders me ineffective for God’s kingdom. But when he whispers his doubts, I’ll listen for the voice of truth. I will pray, not for greater abilities or even for a higher sense of worth, but for a deeper faith to believe God’s voice. I’ll remember the lessons from Peter and Paul: that I can be confident because Christ is my rock beneath and my power within.

I’ll remember rocks and pots.