Confidence

             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)

          Someone posted something on social media this morning asking about our young folks having lost their faith. I answered that I don’t think the young have lost their faith. Either they never had any or they’ve moved their faith to something else. Sadly, when we “lose” faith, we may not realize what we are shifting our faith to. It could be the government, teachers, or even some vague “lack of belief” that ultimately is faith in oneself if in no other sense than that one believes one is capable of discerning when and if one encounters something in which one can have faith.

          Keep in mind that faith can be either positive or negative. You can have complete faith that someone who has murdered several times will murder again. You can have faith that the government will take care of you and solve your problems, or that it won’t. I recommend the latter.

          In today’s passage, we aren’t told to not lose our faith. We’re told not to throw away our confidence. Throwing something away isn’t losing something. Losing something means you can look for it and find it again. If you throw something away, you know precisely where it is. You put it there deliberately. It’s an act of the will.

          The problem with having faith or confidence in anything is that confidence that lasts for 0.125 seconds isn’t worth much. Neither is a faith of 3 seconds or only 3 minutes. Oh, there may be times when we put a fire under our faith, but there’s not much sense in putting a fire under an empty pan unless we plan to put something in it soon, unless your goal is to ruin the pan. It’s only when there is faith in the “pan” that it does any good to light said fire under it.

          In a sense, this passage might be paraphrased as “Don’t throw the contents (the faith/confidence) of the pan (the thing in which you have confidence/faith) down the drain and put the pot back on the fire (your life.)” Equally, don’t throw the contents into a plastic bag and put it back on the fire.