We all know the type: the confident dimwit. It’s the person who is too sure of himself to see his own failure. King Solomon warned his son of the fool who can’t enter a room without thinking he’s the smartest one there. This sort of fool feels full of himself, but that’s just arrogance-carbonation producing pride bubbles covering up his hunger. The fool is deceptively full. One big burp and all is made clear – he produces noise and stench and not much else. Folly is arrogant and arrogance is foolish.
I lay that before you as a qualification to prevent any upcoming charges thrown my way. I acknowledge that the misconstrued notion of baseless self-esteem is annoying at best, and deadly at worst. The “Believe in Thyself” philosophy, as my good mentor and friend would put it, is straight from the pit.
However, taking all of the above into consideration, confidence in a man is an admirable trait. Yes, there is a time to ask questions, be unsure, and search for answers. But interpreting constant apprehension, self-doubt, hesitancy to act, and overall uncertainty as humility would be a mistake. I think we’ve seen plenty of examples in recent church history when, under the mask of humility, Christians were apprehensive in confrontation. Scripture tells us that the man Moses was very meek, and yet it takes a special kind of confidence to tell the Egyptian King to submit to the Lord. The shepherd boy David referred to himself as a worm, and yet derided and killed the giant without blinking. The prophet Elijah was a man of humble appearance, and yet it takes the sort of boldness many of us lack to stand alone against 850 pagan prophets. We feel pressure when we don’t mask up. Paul may not have looked the part, but we wouldn’t dare charge him with a lack of confidence. And our Lord, when walking this earth, was meek and humble and confident.
Sure, we can talk about what or whom we should be confident in. Should we be confident in our own abilities or in the Lord’s benevolent sovereignty? Yes. A Christian’s confidence should be rooted in trusting the Lord’s sovereignty and His love. The phrase “Work like an Arminian, sleep like a Calvinist” is awfully misguided. Working like God doesn’t control the outcome is extremely discouraging and frightening. Work and sleep like a Calvinist. Just be a Calvinist. It’s good for you. If God wills, then perhaps what you’re endeavoring will work. And if he doesn’t, you’ll be the better for it. There’s also plenty to say about the necessity of skill and competence in our endeavors. The better we are at something, the less hesitant we are in our undertaking. A-Okay is what I like to say.
Putting all of that together, a general bedrock of confidence is an important baseline as we undertake our calling. Confidence is instilled in us as we get to know our Lord and obey him by faith, and as we grow in our skill and excellence. But also, an underlying sense of either confidence or uncertainty gets rooted in us during our childhood and stays with us throughout our adult life. That isn’t to say that people can’t change. But it is to say that the way we raise our kids matters. And since this week was Father’s Day, I thought I’d tie up all of this mumble jumble together and try to steer this seemingly disordered train of a blog post by laying out a few points of consideration about raising confident men. (I’d say confidence is just as essential for women, but one gender at a time, please. There’s too many to count now.)
I’ve heard different perspectives about what it takes to bring up boys into confident men. Some say if boys start school too young, they will be the runt of the litter, always trying to keep up, which in turn will hurt their confidence. I’ve also heard that with coed schools, boys may be discouraged by the fact that the girls naturally surpass them in institutional academics, which in turn will hurt their confidence. These, and other points like it, may be relevant and helpful to consider, but I think if we were to boil it down to what our boys need in order to develop a healthy dose of confident security, we ought to acknowledge the essential role a father plays in the boy’s upbringing. The active presence of a father does for the boy what no social engineering can accomplish. And to get a glimpse of what a father’s active presence looks like, we need not search much further than the way God the Father addresses the Son. In this scene, an archetype of fatherhood is presented for all to see.
“And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.'” – Mark 1:11
This address took place right after Jesus was baptized. And so, the first takeaway that comes to us is the attentiveness of the father. A father’s active presence means that dad is paying attention to his son. Whether his son is a toddler drawing on the walls or a boy receiving an award, a dad’s active presence means that he is present and is paying attention to what his son is doing. He knows his son. He knows his son’s strengths and struggles. The dad knows what his son likes and doesn’t like. He knows which direction his son should lean, and what guidance would help him.
A dad’s attention is important not just for the sake of instruction and correction, but for the sake of the boy’s security and confidence. That’s one reason why you see son’s with inattentive dads start to act up, rebel, and derail. They’re trying to get dad’s attention. They’re insecure without it. And typically, if that doesn’t work, their insecurity builds up with exasperation. An American teenager with a green mohawk is screaming for his dad’s attention. An overachieving workaholic may be as well. Eventually, dad moves out of the direct picture, and it’s everybody else’s attention the boy-now-man is after. The crazier or more successful he can get, the more likely others will pay attention, even if the attention is not of the good sort. We see the attentiveness God the Father shows to His Son. It’s this attentiveness our sons need as well in our active presence.
The second point for our consideration is that the Father is not only paying attention, but He is also acknowledging His Son. The Father identifies with the Son, calling him “My Son”, in response to what the Son is doing. A boy’s identity and security are reinforced when his dad is not only paying attention but acknowledging him.
The acknowledgment can come in many different ways, depending on the situation. Whether it’s encouragement, feedback, instruction, discipline, or reassurance, a dad’s acknowledgment is critical to the boy’s upbringing. “Good job. You did that really well.” “What you did was not okay. This is how you should have responded.” “I think you should consider pursuing that.” “You are my son and I love you.” Perhaps a dad is paying attention to his boy, but apart from acknowledging his son and his actions, mere attention isn’t sufficient.
The third bullet here is of course the love of the Father. The acknowledgement the Father gave included the word “Beloved.” It’s this foundational reality on which everything else holds together. The attentiveness and acknowledgement a father shows his son flows out of his love for him, or it ought to. The confidence a boy develops is a confidence rooted not in performance, but in his dad’s love. The way a father pays attention and provides acknowledgement looks and feels different when the father starts with a foundation of love. Even in discipline, if we imitate the Father’s motives, dads discipline their sons because they love them. The discipline should express that love. The love a father has for and shows his son is at the foundation of the boy’s secure confidence.
And last, but definitely not least, is the pleasure a father finds in his son. A boy can see and sense when he is a burden for his dad, or when he is his dad’s pleasure. A dad’s active presence motivated by guilt is not the same as when it’s motivated by pleasure. “I’m here because I want to be.”
I think this last point may be one of the more difficult applications for fathers, because typically men are more critical. A hard-to-please dad is a stereotype we’re familiar with. But that is not what we see in our Heavenly Father. He is the Father that is well-pleased with His Son. As a father to sons myself, I want them to know that I delight in them and am pleased with them. Having his father’s pleasure is critical as the boy grows into confident manhood.
In all of this, fathers are reflecting to their sons the active presence of God the Father. We have our Heavenly Father’s attention, acknowledgement, love, and pleasure. We are secure in that. And we reflect that kind of fatherhood to our sons.
Now, this all seems like general parenting advice. (It’s good parenting advice, actually.) But why bring confidence into the conversation? Doesn’t that hone our attention a bit too specifically?
So, here is the final knot to tie it all together in a neat and orderly fashion. The reason I’m connecting fathers imitating the Father in how they raise their sons with confidence in those men-to-be is because that is exactly what’s lacking in many churches today. Today’s Christianity lacks a certain kind of boldness and confident assertion in otherwise good men. The onslaught on the church today through wokism, governmental overreach, gay-Christian agenda, compromising leadership, and so on requires bold masculinity. Too many good men stare into the corruption, lies, and blatancy of our modern culture with an underlying tone of uncertain hesitancy as to when to speak up and how to do it. Good men can be sinfully careful when cowardliness, not confidence, lies at their bedrock. And much of that stems back to the lack of attention, acknowledgement, love, and pleasure of fathers to sons. Raising boys to be useful men for the kingdom when the stakes are high starts with playing Legos and potty training.
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