Today, many people will tell you to believe in yourself, and in your inner strength. When you ask someone today where they get their confidence from, they probably say they get their confidence from within. But, I want to be the person who brings a new perspective to the table. After having great experience in this area, and having tried depending on my own abilities and the validation of the world to make me confident and happy, I’ve come to this conclusion: your confidence cannot come from within or from the world, it must come from Jesus Christ alone.

The reason being is because as humans, we are internally broken. We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. If we depend on ourselves for our confidence, we will have constant shifts in our confidence, because we will always end up disappointing ourselves in some way. We cannot reach the level of perfection to keep us on a consistent level of high confidence that is only found in Christ. It’s just not realistic, and quite frankly, unattainable.

Yet, when we look to Christ to sustain us, we will be able to withstand all the disappointments of the world without being shaken too badly. When people disappoint us, betray us, or the world doesn’t meet our expectations in the way we wanted, we can look to our Savior who never changes.

He is a constant force in our lives, and we can always look to Him to lift us up out of the hurt we feel by the world. He has promised to supply us with the validation and confidence that we keep seeking in the world, which lasts for a short time.

As a generation, we tend to put our confidence and validation in how many Instagram followers we have, how many friends we have, how many likes we get on photos, and what our social status is in the world. Grades can define us, our sorority or fraternity, our external appearance and how people validate our looks, and even in our relationship status. Just looking back at the things, I just listed, these all are always changing.

You don’t always get the same number of likes on a photo, friend groups are always undergoing changes, your relationship status is never permeant, and people unfollow and follow you on your Instagram every day. Therefore, I challenge you to think about why your validation may be contingent on these things. I know not everyone looks for their confidence in those specific examples, but I know for a fact that we all chase and seek validation in many areas of our lives except in our relationship with Christ.

The difference between the validation of the world and the validation of Christ is that our need and desire to look for our confidence in the things of this world will always run out, but in Christ, our confidence in Him is unending. In Isaiah 58:11(ESV) it states: “And the LORD will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail”.

See, you’ve been looking for something bigger in something as small as the world, in the things of this world that are manmade. Instead, I encourage you to turn your attention to the Creator of the Universe, the one who made your desire much bigger than validation from those around you.

Now, I’m not saying there won’t be days when you feel less than, and not confident in who Christ made you to be. I think we’ve all been there. But, I think that if you start to base your confidence, hope and validation in Christ, instead of placing it in yourself and others alone, you will see a giant shift in your life. I know I have, and while not seeking validation in friends and the world is a big struggle, slowly try to remove yourself from the things you know you run to when you feel empty and alone.

When you start to do so, you will notice you will need these material things a lot less, and Christ, a lot more.