Confidence in What?

I started playing basketball before I even was able to have any memory of it. My dad bought one of those Little Tikes plastic basketball hoops that adjusted from three to six feet and I would play with my brothers for hours at a time. When I started going to elementary school I was definitely the best in the class and when I got to be in the upper grades in elementary school I was still the best by far. I knew at that time that I was going to be a professional basketball player, watch out Michael Jordan! Middle school started, and 3 elementary schools filtered in to the middle school. I hung out with and played basketball with the serious crowd of ballers, those who knew that they were great players someday. I started on the school’s basketball team, power forward position, our team was awesome, going undefeated in our 6 game season. I knew that I was going to be a professional basketball player. High school started, and 4 middle schools filtered in to the high school. Freshman basketball tryouts started in late Fall, and I made the team, of course. Practices were everyday after school and on Saturday mornings, and sometimes Saturday afternoons as well. When the season finally started I found out I wasn’t a starting power forward anymore, but I hoped that I would be able to prove to the coach that I was starter material. I sat on the bench a lot that year. Sophomore year, I kept with it, hoping to get some playing time because the junior varsity coach seemed like a good guy. I sat on the bench some more. Junior year, I had hoped to move up to the Varsity team, but the JV coach asked me to stay on his team because the young team needed some experience. Senior year, the year that I would move up to varsity, the Varsity coach retired and the JV coach moved into his coaching spot, knowing that it would be another year of sitting on the bench, I quit.
In Kindergarten when all the other kids were struggling to sound out a couple words in the Red Robin Reader book, I was moving through the Blue Bird Book with ease. I was quickly put into the GATE program at school. I didn’t know what it was aside from all the smart kids were in it. I was definitely the smartest kid in school. I got awards at every awards program, and then moved on to middle school. The teachers didn’t know what to do with me after I had finished all my work at school and all the other kids still had tons to do, I was often sent to do special projects to take up more time. I was definitely the smartest. Not many kids can graduate from high school with a 4.1 GPA, but I did, right behind two other kids, who got the honors of Val Victorian and Salutatorian, while I got honorable mention. I was almost the smartest kid in school. At Pepperdine, I was surprised to find that most of the students there also got excellent grades, lots of them better than mine. Classes were tough, but I managed to get through them all. No huge honors were bestowed upon me this time however.
In both cases, as my world got bigger and bigger, I got smaller and smaller. I can definitely say now that I am not and will never be a professional basketball player or the smartest person in the world, two things that looked very promising to me earlier in life. Both times my self confidence took a huge hit, and I had two choices at those points in my life 1) run away and feel sorry for myself, or 2) find a source of confidence that can never let me down or fail me. When the world gets bigger and I get smaller, there is only one thing I know that I can still boast about because it cannot change and that is the love of God for me. When coaches sit me on the bench and students get better grades than me, God says to me, “Hey, I can use you, just the way you are. I have a special project for you to do for me.” How do I know that my confidence in God’s love will never be let down? Because he has proven it to me over and over again, and most outwardly through God’s son Jesus, who died for me to prove that the love of God for me, will never cease. Now that is something to boast about.