There’s a difference between self-confidence and self-righteousness.

Sometimes I have been afraid to be confident out of fear of coming across arrogant or self-righteous. I would go to the other extreme and talk down to myself to keep myself “humble”. 

But humility is not self-deprecation and confidence is not arrogance. Both are sometimes heart-postures that no one can truly judge but God. What someone might perceive as arrogance in one culture, might be perceived as humility in another. 

This is why we have to go to the Bible and see what it says about these things. God calls us to be confident in Him (1 Cor. 1:31), but to also be careful not to let pride of our own doing creep in (Proverbs 11:12, James 4:6). 

When we are confident in who we are in Christ, this does not mean that we become arrogant or “holier than thou”. It simply means that we are to KNOW who we are in Christ (we are loved, we are His children, we are saved because of Him, etc.), and LIVE out that knowledge by doing what He has called us to do, and not being afraid to love others radically through His love for us.

You might look at the way I flip my hair and think “wow she’s so confident in herself” when maybe in my heart, I am not. You might look at my hunched shoulders when I walk and think “wow she needs to be more confident in herself” when maybe I actually FEEL more confident. What I’m saying is that I don’t think you can always tell a person’s confidence by the way they act, and none of us should be judging a person’s heart except God. Although, I will say it has been really helpful for me to have other people give me pointers on what a confident person typically looks like. Sometimes when I walk or posture myself a certain way, I start to feel more confident in who I am in Christ too. 

Of course, there are ways that we CAN sometimes see pride and humility lived out. For example, I know that a lot of times when I get defensive about something, it’s because I have a wound in my heart that I am trying to protect with my pride. I can tell right away that my pride is getting in the way of me having a good relationship with someone, and I need God’s help to humble me. 

And that, my friends, I think, is a key factor of the difference between self-confidence and self-righteousness: Self-confidence does NOT get in the way of having good relationships with the people around you, whereas self-righteousness DOES. 

Let’s think about that for a moment. It’s really difficult to be friends with someone who continually gets jealous of you and/or others around them. Jealousy is sometimes a form of pride and self-righteousness. It’s difficult to be friends with someone who constantly gets defensive or is overly sensitive about things a lot. All of us can be sensitive about certain things and we are all called to live in gentleness towards one another when it comes to that. But feeling like you have to walk on eggshells with a person blocks a relationship from blissful vulnerability (which you need for good relationships to thrive). 

However, if someone is self-confident and secure in who they are, is not going to feel threatened by your wins, they are going to celebrate with you. A confident person doesn’t try to control you. They allow you to have other friends; they don’t get jealous when you are with others.

All in all, confidence is not always pride, and we need to be careful how we judge other people because we cannot see people’s true heart postures. The fact that only God can see someone’s true heart posture also frees us from being so afraid of what others think of us. 

In order to be confident and humble, we need to be communing with God regularly so that He can help us have the right heart posture. When we are constantly reminded of who we are in Christ by choosing to commune with Him, we will neither self-deprecate or become arrogant because we know that we are both imperfect and loved. 

It is not always an easy journey, and I fail all the time, but praise God He is with us through it all!