Confident?

What does it mean to be confident? Not being easily swayed in your belief? Not second guessing? Knowing the value and meaning behind what you are doing and not letting it get diminished by your own insecurity?

I have always been a skeptic. Skeptical of myself, skeptical of the world, and skeptical of what I am taught. Back in elementary school I was the kid who annoyed others because she asked so many questions, having to know why and how things worked before she would fully accept them.

In school it took me longer to learn things than other students because I needed to really understand everything about the topic and how to come to the proper conclusion first- and while it took me longer- I did very well because I understood the concepts. This is also one of the reasons I am super into apologetics (knowing the science, history, philosophy, and logic behind the Christian belief), because I don't think that blindly walking into anything, especially beliefs about life and death is wise at all.

Anyways- What does all this talk about confidence have to do with Germany? Well it feels like everything. Not only do I have a whole bunch of questions that can't be answered right now but I don't know what to expect. I'm excited but nervous to see what God teaches me, how he changes me, and uses me.

I like to have a plan for things though- and trusting that I don't really need a plan because Gods got this already in his hands is so hard. He has been so faithful to me in the past and I could list countless amazing stories of his provision but yet the worry wart and insecure doubtful me never seems to fully recede.

My call to music and missions has been confirmed in some really cool circumstances before http://www.tspeller.blogspot.ca/search/label/calling. but I've lost confidence in them as time has allowed the memory of those moments to fade away.

My mentor told me she feels this time in Germany is really going to be a confidence builder for me, a reconfirmation not only that God wants to bring justice and raise awareness of the things that break his heart to his people, but that he wants to use me to do it.

I sure hope so. I leave tomorrow morning.

Jeremiah 17:5-8

This is what the Lord says:
"Curse is the one who TRUSTS IN MAN,
who draws strength from mere flesh
and whose heart turns away from the Lord.
That person will be like a bush in the wastelands;
they will not see prosperity when it comes.
They will dwell in the parched places of the desert,
in a salt land where no one lives.

"But blessed is the one who TRUSTS in the Lord,
whose CONFIDENCE IS IN HIM.
They will be like a tree planted by the water
that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
and never fails to bear fruit."