A Great Encouragement

I was with a few other church planters this past week for our (roughly) quarterly gathering to share, swap ideas, encourage each other, etc. Toward the end when our designated facilitator asked us to randomly go around and share something that we appreciate about each other.

Great, I thought. Now I have to figure out something really insightful and original to say about everyone. Despite the usual awkward beginning that most of these exercises entail, we quickly found it easy to say a lot about everyone in the group.

I'm usually way more focused on what I'm going to say about others than worrying about what will be said of me, so when people starting "appreciating" me, it was very humbling. Especially when someone said,

"George, I really appreciate your humble confidence."

Or was is confident humility?
I don't remember. Perhaps it doesn't matter. But I thought about it as I drove home.

To have confidence in the Lord, but humility in oneself.
Confidence in our calling; humility in working it out.
Confidence in our gifts; humility in exercising them.
Confidence in the future; humility in the present.

I decided not to shrug off the compliment, but embrace it. And I pray that a "confident humility"/ "humble confidence" will be something that others see in me too.