“Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time:” - 1 Peter 5: 6
I just finished up mentoring a woman who is awesome. She is such a glorious daughter of God. And you know what her main goal in working with me was? Confidence. This awesome lady had spent so many years beating herself up that she had next to 0 self worth. And she thought she was just being humble.
I see it ALL THE TIME. I know so many Christian women that are really afraid of being prideful so they constantly beat themselves up, pick apart their imperfections, reject compliments and just in general feel really terrible about themselves. I know because I do it too!
There are these little voices. And they have taken up residence in our heads and they are false.
FALSE.
F A L S E.
They are Satan’s counterfeit for humility. They say “who are you to do that?” when a great idea comes to you about a way to serve. Or they say, “you are a terrible mother. Why do you even try?” when you are faced with something hard from your child. Or they say, “you are so hideous, you should hide” when the spirit prompts you to talk to that person. Or they say, “see how much better she is at….” and “you are nothing” and “give up now.”
Then it comes out in our words when we are talking to other people. “I don’t know how you do it, I could never do that!” “I am a mean mom.” “I just don’t get anything right.” “I love your hair, look at my little threads.” “I don’t have any talents.” “I am failing.”
And then we hide.
There was a beautiful article in the Ensign that you can find here. It showed the difference between humility and lack of confidence so perfectly.
“To be humble is to recognize our utter dependence upon the Lord. We are conscious of our strengths, but we do not exalt ourselves and become prideful, for we know that all good things ultimately come from God. We are conscious of our weaknesses, but we know the Lord can use those very weaknesses to bless our lives and that through Him, as we learn from the book of Ether, our weaknesses can become strengths.
“To lack confidence is to have feelings of low self-worth. We are preoccupied with our weaknesses, and we lack faith in the Lord’s ability to use those weaknesses for our good. We do not understand our inestimable worth in the eyes of God, nor do we appreciate our divine potential. Ironically, both pride and a lack of self-confidence cause us to focus excessively on ourselves and to deny the power of God in our lives.” Elder Glenn L. Pace
Did you see that? Lack of self-confidence can be just as bad as pride! They both get us to think too much about ourselves, and deny the power of God in our lives. Then that old Liar wins. He finds another way to win.
Good women of the world, we don’t have time for that kind of “false humility.” We aren’t meant to hide! We are precious children of God, and we are meant to shine His light to all those around us. He relies on us to use the gifts he has given us to bless his children. But we can’t if we are paralyzed by our inadequacies. We can’t if we don’t see our gifts. We can’t if we don’t know who we are.
I LOVE this philosophy of President Gordon B. Hinckley: “I believe in myself. I do not mean to say this with egotism. But I believe in my capacity and in your capacity to do good, to make some contribution to the society of which we are a part, [and] to grow and develop. … I believe in the principle that I can make a difference in this world, be it ever so small.”
