confidence

a more formal post i wrote about a week ago. a bit of rambling, but a bit not. no real resolution though

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this past january, i road-tripped with a couple of friends to Dallas for something called the EPIC anthology conference, for EPIC (the Asian American movement of campus crusades for Christ) movements around the central region to get together and urge each other on in their Christian walks. one of the days, we split off by gender and had something called Men's Time for an hour or two, which consisted of a main speaker and then a panel of guys that asked and answered questions regarding manhood.

one of the questions that one of the guys on the panel threw out was "what is something that you wish someone had told you earlier?" like what is something you wish you knew before (fill in the blank) happened.

i've been reading around in Donald Miller's To Own a Dragon and Miller writes that guys who grow up fatherless don't usually get affirmation from their dads. they do not realize that they belong, that they are just as manly as any other guy despite their upbringing, they lack that affirmation and consequently end up confused or insecure or feeling like they are at an impossible disadvantage than from those who grew up with dads.

it's like a hole inside of somebody.

i hope this doesn't come off like a rant or complaint or simple selfishness, but i wish someone had told me that i belonged. that i could be confident, that i could do anything i set my mind to. i wish someone had said, "you know what to do. so just go ahead and do it. it doesn't matter if you're any less qualified than someone else - you know what's right, and you can do it, and there's no reason you can't." instead, it is almost second nature for me to submit to someone else - not to take the lead, but to divert all attention from me and hand up responsibility to someone else.

in basketball, i can be perfectly open to shoot, but it is confidence that keeps me from shooting, even when i know i can sink a shot. it has become completely automatic to think about where i can pass, and so often the thought of being the one who actually scores the points does not cross my mind. in class, i can know an answer, be certain of it, and be unwilling to say anything. in high school, i refused to wear any kind of tie that expressed some bit of individuality - i wore solid colors and stripes for four years because i didn't want to stick out. i wanted to fit in, to render myself faceless in a world of others so eager to make names for themselves. i ate lunch by myself, and hardly cared - i was even amused when people sat down at my table just because they thought i was bothered to be eating by myself...then i just stopped eating in the cafeteria.

this isn't a sob story - or at least it shouldn't be. i don't exactly want your sympathy. i guess i just wish that someon told me i wasn't inferior, that i didn't have to spend my whole life questioning whether i was good enough for anything, overthinking motives and actions, perhaps so secretly concerned about what others thought or saw of me, because no one else seemed to see me before.

suzi told me something i hadn't heard or thought of before last night. we had gone to a couple of talent showcases over the past school semester, and i always left feeling a bit down on myself, stuck between anonymity and wanting to be someone. because i felt like that could be me up there...and yet, i also felt that that would never be me up there. suzi said that it was not that i desired to have the performers' talents, but that i deeply longed for the confidence they exhibited. it might not have even been a desire for attention from the crowd or the excellence displayed - it may have simply been knowing that someone could be so confident in themself.

instead of paying attention in church yesterday, i read through 2 peter twice. a verse caught my eye, before i started thinking about any of what i have just written - "They [those who work against the Lord] are spots and blemishes...having eyes full of adultery and that cannot cease from sin, enticing unstable souls" (2:13/14). and what stuck out were those last three words - enticing unstable souls.

confront me about a math problem, i'll usually back down, even when i know i'm right. political debates, ethical dilemmas, even fouls or outs in basketball...i'll back down. wanna fight? i'd run away before you could do anything about it. and i'd outrun you too. (ironically, the closest thing i seem to have to the popular book Wild at Heart is my running.)

and so... do i have an unstable soul? for i've tasted and seen - i'm certain that God is God, and that He deserves all of me, and i will live my life for Him even if i die trying, because that is how right and true and pure God is. and i may even wait the day when someone holds a gun to my head and asks me if i believe in God and His love, so that i might die for the only thing i believe is worth living and dying for.

but when it comes to other things, especially dealing with myself - i'm so easy to back down, whatever is the opposite of confidence. i will be confident in God, but i'm so easy to put myself down...

---little update---
a couple of weeks into summer. i've felt aimless lows and face-the-giant highs. two Bible studies started, fires stirring up in some friends, peers stepping up to lead studies. quiet times, prayer, going through the minor prophets. two or three days ago, i ran my heart out in the rain through downtown tulsa, getting lost in the process, feeling speed in my legs, putting my body on the line days after tweaking my ankle. at the end, i threw my hands to the sky and thanked God, for i haven't run like that in months. God knows how much i like rain.