Tonight we looked at three Cs which are important in Christian living: being confident, competent and content. These three aspects of life are not entirely unique to Christianity, but certainly, Jesus Christ transforms the meaning of all three attitudes and gives us the ability to live differently as we live in Him and allow His Holy Spirit to direct us and shape us so that we can experience life in all its fulness (John 10:10) and can live in ways that are decidedly counter-cultural.

Confidence is not simply a personality trait which some possess and others must just do without. Confidence can easily be bruised and broken by life’s difficulties, but the key to Christian confidence is that we can trust God. God is faithful and loving, and so we can be confident that we will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living (Ps 27:13) and that God Himself will complete the work He has begun in us. (Phil 1:6) Because of God, we can have confidence that we can do all things through Him (Phil 4:13). Our confidence is in God and not in ourselves!

Competence is ‘the ability to do something successfully or effectively.’ Many of us feel we are not particularly good at anything, but just as God gives us the righteousness which restores our relationship with Him, God gives us the very competence we need to live for Him (see 2 Cor 3:4-6). Our competence doesn’t come from our own abilities or strengths but from God’s. Both Gideon and Moses knew all about feeling inadequate; Jeremiah felt he was too young to do what God asked him to; Paul came to the Corinthians with fear and trembling. Ultimately, these Bible heroes realised their competence came from God; God does not call the qualified, but qualifies the called!

Being content in God enables us to live patiently before the Lord. Paul speaks about this in Phil 4:11-13, reminding us that contentment is not dependent on circumstances but on a personal relationship with God. We have a part to play in this, namely learning to quieten ourselves before God (see Ps 131:1-2). Only when we see Him as able to meet all our needs (especially our needs for significance, self-worth and security) can we reach the place of contentment, which, alongside godliness, is great gain. (1 Tim 6:6) Then we can rest content, untouched by trouble, because we know Christ has overcome the world (see Prov 19:23, John 16:33).

Garry spoke this morning from Gen 47:1-11, when Joseph presented his family to Pharaoh. We can imagine the different worlds clashing – Joseph’s nomadic farming family meeting Pharaoh, a meeting that under normal circumstances would never have ccome about. But Joseph had proved himself a valuable ally and trusted worker to Pharaoh and therefore they were acceptable to Pharaoh because of their connection to Joseph.

We too are brought before God through the sacrifice of Jesus. A holy God welcoming sinful people – how can this be?! Only those with clean hands and a pure heart could ascend the mountain of the Lord (Ps 24:3-4), but Jesus comes as our representative, taking on flesh, dwelling among us (John 1:14) and making a way for us to be acceptable to God. We are now of the same family (Heb 2:10-12); He is not ashamed to call us brothers and sisters and experienced first hand the ups and downs of life, the joys, disappointments and sorrows. Jesus suffered for us (Heb 5) so that He has become a high priest forever (see Heb 6:19-20, Heb 7:25-27).

Not only do we gain access to God through Jesus, we gain blessing. Just as Joseph’s family were given the best grazing land for their flocks entirely through grace, now we have been blessed beyond belief by God (see Eph 1:3, 7-8) Sometimes we are unaware of all He has done for us, but as we take Communion each week, we can remember and count the blessings He has achieved for us. We have salvation so we can stand faultless before a holy God. We have gaied a Father who knows us, loves us, holds us and works for us. We have God with us continually to support and guide. We can give thanks for all He has done and for all there is to come.

Yesterday (16^th June) was a day of lows and highs concerning funding applications, which got me thinking, simply because of the timings lending a synchronicity to my day that made me smile wryly (after crying copiously). I seem to spend an inordinate amount of time on funding applications. I don’t have the privilege of rich patrons or willing wealthy benefactors (alas), and so in order to do the crazy ideas God puts into my heart to accomplish, I have to ask for money to fulfil those plans. (He often seems to give me wild ideas that cost a lot of money, much to my astonishment on a regular basis.)

I don’t enjoy asking funders for money. It comes across to me as begging, and I suppose my pride keeps raising its ugly head, making me feel slightly dirty as I try to fit my God-plans into the funding objectives of other organisations. Nonetheless, I have seen over a great many years how God is able to release monies from the most unlikely sources and that His ideas always do get the money they need, however much this astounds me on a regular basis. I suppose I would really like each idea to come with a cheque attached to it. That would make my life so much easier! I’ve reached the conclusion that He doesn’t work that way because then no faith would be required on my part, and one of His purposes in all this is, I suspect, to teach me to live by faith and not by sight. (2 Cor 5:7) Most people don’t see the sweat and tears that go into each project or event as I wrestle with the thoughts, ‘Is this really God or is it just me? If it’s God, He will provide, but if it’s just me, I’m going to end up with egg on my face…’ I feel I ought to have got better at trusting God over the many years of projects (after all, I’ve seen Him provide over £160,000 for the church building I have been using for the past thirteen years, seen Him sell a run-down ramshackle house with a garden that looked like a jungle for £100,000 during a national lockdown and am still running the Dearne Community Arts’ Festival seven years on when we have no discernible income other than fund-raising ideas…) Nonetheless, if I’m honest, each project brings with it heartache and questions, doubts and fears, the biggest one being ‘Have I heard correctly? Is this God or is this me?’

People often ask me, ‘How do you hear God? How do you discern God’s voice from all the other voices out there?’ I wish I could give a bullet-proof answer of serene faith (serenity being one of the qualities I very much admire.) The truth is that God’s voice is persistent, but rarely comfortable. He gives me ‘ideas’ and often it’s only as I talk these ideas over with others that I find an agreement that again astonishes me. What seems to me to be quite wacky (the current selfie board project I’m working on is definitely up there with ‘wacky’, especially coming from a person who would run a mile from a photographer given half a chance (and the physical stamina to run that distance) and who much prefers radio to TV because I don’t have to deal with the distraction of images but can concentrate on words that way) suddenly seems to be hugely popular with others, and a project is breathed into life.

Gideon being one of my favourite Biblical characters, I usually then go through his process of ‘fleeces’ (see Judges 6), asking God for confirmation and reassurance. Some people think this is putting God to the test, but I think there if there is a genuine need for signs, God is very, very gracious with us. He knows our hearts. Some people may well have more confidence at this stage, but for the Gideons among us, loaded with insecurity and doubt as a kind of default baggage we find it difficult to shift, God is well able to meet with us. He gives us exactly what we need: a random phone call, an email from someone who knew nothing about the situation, a Bible verse that lights up and glows like a rotating advertising sign. He is, above all, a good God of infinite kindness.

So…back to 16^th June. I was in the church building sorting through the usual Friday cleaning and tidying, updating spreadsheets, checking emails. There it was in the inbox: the reply after months from the National Lottery application for this year’s arts’ festival. I looked at it warily. I wasn’t expecting positive news. I have a love-hate relationship with the National Lottery, having had festivals funded by them and having had festival applications rejected by them. I wasn’t brimful with confidence. And sure enough, it was a rejection. Nicely phrased with reasons set out that had more to do with their criteria than my project, but a rejection nonetheless. And even though I was expecting this rationally, it still had the power to suck the confidence out of me. It means I have to start again with funding for that project, and now it’s June and the festival is scheduled for September. I went through exactly the same thing last year and God provided for us at the 11^th hour. I daresay He will do the same again, because He’s good at that kind of thing! But there is still that visceral reaction that kicks all the doubts and questions into my field of vision again. Disappointment. Dejection. Rejection. Frustration. Weariness, because if there’s one thing I don’t want to do, it’s to write another funding application.

I carried on with the jobs, vacuuming while crying and praying at the same time. Raw emotion brought straight to God, begging for answers, for help, as I felt overwhelmed by my utter inability to produce money from nowhere. Eventually, the tears subsided, and I moved on to tidying the children’s room. This was like Aladdin’s cave, filled with props for yet another event, the Christmas Churches Together project, ‘The Narnia Experience.’ Another crazy idea, re-creating the magical world of Narnia in our church building, re-telling those amazing allegorical stories and sharing how much God loves us through the theme of storytelling, which has been this year’s ‘Big Idea.’ I submitted a funding application for this project just this week, and as I began sorting and tidying, I wondered why God keeps giving me the responsibility for these community events if I don’t get the money I need to do them. Why does it have to be so hard!?!

I started listening to a podcast: anything, to distract me from the lurking fear that I was barking up the wrong tree and was doomed to failure. Then my phone rang. It was an unfamiliar number. I answered to hear the cheerful tones of a young woman working for Coalfields Regeneration Trust. You guessed it: another funder.

“How are you doing today?” she asked me cheerily. I answered with the same raw honesty I had been pouring out to God, unwilling to engage in chit-chat. “That depends on what you’re going to say to me,” I said with tactless bluntness. “I’ve just had a funding application turned down by the National Lottery, so it depends what you’re going to tell me as to how I’m doing!”

She laughed and told me that I had been successful with that application, an application for funding of £4050 towards the running costs of two community projects I run (the Parent & Toddler group and ‘Mindful Moments’ creative evening for adults at our church.) One application turned down; one application got the green light.

For me, the timing of these two answers within hours of one another was a definite answer to prayer. ‘Give me a sign!’ I’d blubbed to God just the hour before. Here it was: a green light to carry on with my weekly and monthly ministries. And perhaps more than that, the reassurance that He really does have it ALL in hand. Even rejection can be woven into His plans; disappointment and discouragement don’t have the last word. The journey by faith continues. I’ve yet to see how all the other ideas will be funded, but this week I have signed off on the monitoring report for the Phoenix Park Fun Day (project finished and paid for) and can keep going with my regular work, even though Scottish Power seem determined to scupper that through their ridiculously escalating bills. That gives me hope for all the other crazy ideas still to be completed. The lows and highs of funding applications will be more than balanced by the goodness and power of God.