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There are seasons which make you feel like all hope is lost, like there is no way out, but then you make it out of them. In the aftermath, you get stronger, you gain a certain type of confidence that no one else understands. Here you realize that there are some things that helped you cross over, the assets in your life. In my experience, it was my faith and my ability to disappear into a world of imaginations that helped me cross to the other side. Growing up, I found myself in situations where I felt like I didn’t have the energy to make it through. Particularly, going to boarding school at age 7 turned out to be an endless cycle of torment. Don’t get me wrong, not all of it was hell, there were some good days. However, in addition to missing your parents, you had to endure tough seasons such as bullying, being broke, loneliness, the not so good food, the hardships of failing in class, the students and teachers who pointed out your weaknesses and made you insecure, the issues at home that you had to deal with (at school) on your own. The list is endless! It was a battle for many of us but we had to keep going and eventually we made it out. This is all that matters. Unfortunately, these series of terrible events or challenges continue to manifest themselves even at an adult stage of life, and we have to learn how to deal with them.

Today’s sermon is from the one and only; PSF (Pastor Steven Furtick). When I say this man came for us this 2021, it is just an understatement. I mean! He just keeps pointing out things that I didn’t even know where still there. This Sunday’s sermon was titled “Borrowed Confidence” and it just took me back to those school days that I try so hard to forget. As I reflected on his sermon, he made me realize that I wasn’t all alone during these challenging years, God had given me a weapon that I didn’t know I had, my faith. My grandma and mother (God bless them), made prayer a very significant part in our family. It was no excuse to miss prayers. Because we prayed these long boring prayers at my granny’s place, it always felt like a punishment. Eventually, these crammed prayers became my routine. I progressively started to enjoy my prayer time and found myself praying to make it through. I started talking to God in those terrible dark days thus, borrowing my mother and grandmother’s confidence in God.

PSF tells us that we need to be careful about where we get our confidence from because “where your confidence comes from determines when it runs out.” He also warns us against putting our confidence in things such as our bodies, our careers, our friends, pastors because when you do this, you give these people or things “the ability to strip your faith.” He instead encourages us to put our confidence in God because he is everlasting. To illustrate this, he investigates the experience of David (see Psalms 27:13, 1 Samuel 17:28-36), Paul (see Philippians 1: 1-6 & 14) and Moses (see Exodus 1-5). He also believes that before you can remain confident, you have to be confident so that you can become confident.

In primary six, my mum gave me this success card (for my final exams) in which she wrote a prayer that I was supposed to say before every exam. It later turned into my everyday prayer. She wrote that I had to ask God to send me the Holy Spirit to take hold of my hand and write the exam for me, in this prayer I was to admit that I didn’t know anything on my own but that I trusted God to use my hand to write the right answers (it was a whole page long). Full disclosure, I didn’t perform that great in this term but I still said this prayer every day and it helped me through other tough seasons. This prayer changed my life. It gave me confidence. I knew that I had my mother’s prayer and my faith in God to go through anything that came at me despite my feelings. PSF says that confidence is not “a feeling, its a decision.” He adds that feelings are easily stripped while decisions are instantly made.

Correspondingly, PSF uses the story of Paul. He contends that Paul’s initial ministry started with the Philippians believing him and turning to God. We know that during these times, it was tough converting to Christianity but they did. Similarly, Paul (in writing this letter) believed in these Christians even when it was hard for them to believe in themselves. Paul did not let his current situation in jail to stop him from preaching the gospel to them. He saw their potential. PSF says, “God will send you a partner… someone who sees potential in you that your pain has blocked from your visibility.” Paul reminded the Philippians that everything that was happening was for a purpose. He recognized that he needed to keep strong in his current situation because it was helping others get confidence to spread the word of God. Instead of focusing on his pain, he received joy from remembering them. In this way, they borrowed confidence from Paul to keep moving. Now, I don’t know what my mother was going through when she decided to write that prayer for me but being an adult now, I am certain that she also had her own struggles she was dealing with being a single mom at a young age. This did not stop her from planting the seed of faith into my life. She borrowed confidence from God which she lent me. Pastor Steven asks us, “are you always the needy one or can somebody else hold a little bit of your faith for a while?” Therefore, going through staff shouldn’t be a reason for you to not encourage others who are going through staff too. PSF also encourages us to always look out for the people God has put in our path, those partners who push us forward and believe in you when you cannot. Make sure you surround yourself with the right ones.

Furthermore, PSF explains how sometimes, “ignorance looks like confidence from a distance,” and that “Ignorance is sometimes to your advantage in trusting God.” To illustrate this, he uses David’s experience and explains that it is to his advantage that David didn’t know what God had planned for him to do when he accepted to take food to his brothers because he could have changed his mind if he found out that God wanted him to fight a giant. Moreover, his decision to trivialize fighting Goliath when everyone around him had been scared of approaching him for days was probably because he was ignorant of the facts. All David knew was that he served a greater God and that facts didn’t matter to him. He faced this situation with faith.

Although David had no one to believe in him and cheer him on, he made a decision to boldly face Goliath. This was after his brother said some hurtful things to him, trying to belittle him but David made a decision to walk away and move forward with confidence which was borrowed from his faith in God. PSF tells us not to let the doubt and insecurity from other people affect our decisions. He explains, “don’t let their limitation become your insecurity.” Here we see that it doesn’t matter if the person discouraging you from chasing your dreams is a professor, a leader, your brother, your pastor. They may appear to know more than you do but you have to remain confident and believe in what God has told you to do. PSF points out that just because they cannot see it or believe it should not mean that you cannot. People will tell you it has never been done before or that everyone who has tried it has failed. You have to make a decision in that moment that you are not “them” you are you and that God has given you something that they didn’t have to break those limitations. There is always that person who will be the solution, be the change and that is you! PSF explains how David’s brother pointed out his inexperience to disqualify him and yet it was the same exact resume that David used to get the job. David explained to King Saul how he had faced lions, bears as a shepherd and was planning to use the same skills he had learnt to defeat Goliath. The King on the other hand was more focused on David’s size. They all wanted to know how he was going to do what they couldn’t do. However, PSF says, “certainty is knowing how, confidence is knowing who.” David knew God was by his side and that is all that mattered to him.

Furthermore, PSF refers to confidence as a currency. He believes that when we borrow it from the wrong things (our relationships, our sexual attractiveness, etc.) or people, it escalates the interest rate. Therefore, do not “borrow confidence from people who have insufficient funds” he says. Instead, in those tough times, PSF encourages us to remember the times when we survived, the times when we developed survival skills. The skills God developed in us without our knowledge. According to PSF, “what we call believing is just remembering right.” At the time of facing these bears and lions to protect his father’s sheep, David must have felt like he was being punished and yet he was being prepared for his purpose to do the impossible with this insignificant skill. So he remembered how God delivered him from the wild animals. Comparably, PSF also tells us, “your power is not in them, its in THIS.” In David’s story, “this” represented his faith and his previous experience. In Moses’s story, “this” represented the staff that he had been carrying around with him. It is what God used to cripple his enemies and provide for the Israelites a way through the red sea, water from a rock, etc.

Therefore, when tough seasons come, when I am feeling low, I try so hard to not let my feelings or “the others” control my confidence in God. I know that I have a God who has equipped me with everything I need to fight through every storm. Instead of worrying, I am training myself to look around me and find people whose faith I can borrow, those that God has placed in my life. I also try to dig up scripture that speaks life into my situation, in many cases this scripture is hidden in worship songs. I find that listening to worship music lifts my spirit high.

Here are some scriptures used by PSF in his sermon that can help us;

In Lamentation, we are told to call to mind so that we can get hope, therefore, do not lose courage.

“I remember my affliction and my wandering, I well remember them and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the Lord’s great love, we are not consumed, for his compassions never fall. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:19-23)

Paul also says, “being confident of this, that he who begun a good work in you will carry it out to completion until the day of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:6).

Similarly, David’s Psalm says, “I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.”

You have something in you that can move mountains, you just have to look around you to find it. For many of us, it is in the people around us, or in that gift, that talent, your personality. God gave them to us for a purpose so don’t go looking for other people to tell you how to do what God has called you to do. Know your weapons, know your strengths and be confident in God. He alone can tell you if you can or cannot do something. We need world changers, we need people who are going to break old chains, bad habits and traits, and family cycles. You can be the first (in your family) to do it, that is ok. All you have to do is believe in yourself as much as I believe in you. Yes I do believe that you can do whatever it is you have been dreaming of doing if God wants it for you.

I pray that God may give you courage and faith to recognize the power that is in you so you can use it to better his kingdom.

With love and prayers,

Resty Kansiime

Here is PSF’s sermon Borrowed Confidence | Pastor Steven Furtick | Elevation Church – YouTube.