Courage Before Confidence

I enjoy using a spoon to eat most of my meals—curries, soups, bowls, and the like. So much so that I’ve even wondered what it would be like to use a spoon for one of my favorite meals: spaghetti. But as we know, a spoon is not the best tool for the job (unless you use it in combination with a fork, as my Filipino friends do).

Psychologist Abraham Maslow famously observed, “If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” This cognitive bias, referred to as the law of the instrument, describes our tendency to rely on familiar tools even when they do not fit the situation.

This happens in our spiritual lives, too. From counseling others and in my own life, I’ve realized we often get stuck because we have learned to treat confidence rather than courage as the primary tool for action. If I feel confident, I move forward. If I don’t feel confident, I assume I should wait. We assume that readiness will feel steady, assured, and emotionally settled. When it doesn’t, we interpret our hesitation as a red light instead of recognizing that we may need a different tool.

Courage.

David’s Confidence and Moses’ Courage

Scripture gives us a helpful contrast.

When the teenage David faced Goliath in 1 Samuel 17, he did not speak like someone trying to talk himself into bravery. In contrast to the fearful army surrounding him, he spoke with the confidence of someone who had a history with God. He recalled how the Lord delivered him from a lion and a bear and concluded that God would do the same again (see 1 Sam. 17:37).

David’s faith felt like confidence because it was built on experience. Confidence relies on a track record. It is not the starting point, as we often assume; it is the result of walking with God long enough to see His faithfulness repeated.

If we wait for confidence before we act, we may be waiting for something that only obedience can produce.

Moses, by contrast, stood before the burning bush with no such résumé. Despite a life of 80 years, his past was marked by failure, rejection, and obscurity. When God called him to appear before Pharaoh, Moses did not respond with bold declarations. He hesitated, asking, “Who am I?” He worried that the people would not believe him. He protested that he was not equipped for the task. His words were filled with but’s, what if’s, and why me’s.

Eventually Moses heeded the call—but he did not move forward because he felt confident. He moved forward because he chose to trust God’s promise despite how he felt. God did not build Moses’ obedience on a review of past victories. Instead, He offered a forward-looking assurance: “I will be with you.”

That is the difference.

David’s faith drew strength from what God had already done. Moses’ faith leaned on what God said He would do. One looks like confidence; the other looks like courage.

Both are genuine faith. But they are not the same emotional experience.

The Sequence

We often assume that confidence must come first and obedience second. Yet in the biblical pattern the order is usually reversed.

Courage is what gets us moving when we do not have a clear history to stand on. Confidence grows afterward, as we look back and see how God has led us along the way.

If we wait for confidence before we act, we may be waiting for something that only obedience can produce. Courage, then, is not a lesser form of faith. It is often the beginning of it. It is the quiet decision to step forward amid the shouts of fear, uncertainty, and limitation.

In moments when I have felt crippled by fear in the face of a new call, a difficult task, or an uncertain next step, I have kept this quote in my back pocket as a reminder that God does not wait for fear to disappear—He gives courage to move forward despite it. Once more, from the life of Moses as he stood on the dark shores of the Red Sea:

“Often the Christian life is beset by dangers, and duty seems hard to perform. The imagination pictures impending ruin before and bondage or death behind. Yet the voice of God speaks clearly, ‘Go forward.’ We should obey this command, even though our eyes cannot penetrate the darkness, and we feel the cold waves about our feet. The obstacles that hinder our progress will never disappear before a halting, doubting spirit. Those who defer obedience till every shadow of uncertainty disappears and there remains no risk of failure or defeat will never obey at all. Unbelief whispers, ‘Let us wait till the obstructions are removed, and we can see our way clearly, but faith courageously urges an advance, hoping all things, believing all things.”[*]

Courage, friends.

[*] Ellen G. White, Patriarchs and Prophets (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 1890, 1908), p. 290. (Emphasis supplied.)