About a month ago, Dan and I started talking and praying about our word for 2019. We have chosen words since 2015 (The Year We’re Rooting For), and we were really excited to see what God had in store for us.

A few weeks ago, I left my office on my lunch break with the intention to run home. When I started my car, it made a terrible noise. So I stopped the car, and then restarted it. It was making the same strange noise, so I turned it off again and called Dan. It took Dan about ten minutes to get from his workplace to my workplace to check on my car. In that time, I had imagined all the possible ways our almost paid of car was about to explode, how Dan would be hurt while fixing an exploding car and what I would do without a husband.

Obviously, this reaction is quite ridiculous. The car was fine (after a quick visit to the mechanic) and Dan still has all his fingers and toes. However, through this experience Dan and I have realized there are still a lot of places in our lives that we haven’t dealt with fear.

So we began to work to rip fear out at the root and replace it with truth. Some of the verses we have been clinging to are:

“I am convinced that my God will fully satisfy every need you have, for I have seen the abundant riches of glory revealed to me through the Anointed One, Jesus Christ!”
Philippians 4:19 TPT

“Refuse to worry about tomorrow, but deal with each challenge that comes your way, one day at a time. Tomorrow will take care of itself.””
Matthew 6:34 TPT

“Don’t be pulled in different directions or worried about a thing. Be saturated in prayer throughout each day, offering your faith-filled requests before God with overflowing gratitude. Tell him every detail of your life, then God’s wonderful peace that transcends human understanding, will make the answers known to you through Jesus Christ. So keep your thoughts continually fixed on all that is authentic and real, honorable and admirable, beautiful and respectful, pure and holy, merciful and kind. And fasten your thoughts on every glorious work of God, praising him always.”
Philippians 4:6-8 TPT

One of the verses that has stuck out to us the most and that we have quoted several times recently is John 14:27. It says this in the Passion Translation:

“I leave the gift of peace with you – my peace. Not the kind of fragile peace given by the world, but my perfect peace. Don’t yield to fear or be troubled in your hearts – instead, be courageous!”

The more Dan and I talked about fear, the more I studied and looked for scripture that would help us combat our fears. During one of those searches, the Lord reminded me that courage is the opposite of fear. So I dug into the word “courageous” a bit more. I learned the Greek word for “courage” is “thárros” and it literally means “boldness and confidence.” That word confidence really stuck out to me.

Websters dictionary defines “confidence” as “the state of feeling certain about the truth of something or the feeling or belief that one can rely on someone or something; firm trust.”

I believe courage cannot happen without confidence in something or someone.  Confidence doesn’t come without trust in something or someone. Spiritually, I can’t be bold in my faith unless I am confident in who is the author of my faith.

Hebrews 4:16 says this in the NIV:

Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.

I love that Jesus wants us to approach Him with confidence. He wants us to know who  He is and boldly ask Him for what our heart desires.

As I am sure you have figured out by now, we have chosen the word “confident” for 2019. We spent all of 2018 focused on the word “rooted” (Walnuts and the Year We Rooted For) and we do not think it is coincidental the Lord has given us the word confident for 2019. 2018 was all about digging in and growing deeper roots. We truly believe we had to be rooted before we could be confident.

We are so excited to see what God does in this word. As always, we have no idea where Jesus will lead, but more so than any years past, we know that He will carry us through whatever comes. We aren’t fearful of tomorrow and what it may hold. We are not only confident that God will come through for us, we are are confident that He will keep his promises.  I think Psalm 27:1-3 sums my heart up for 2019 perfectly. It says this in the Christian Standard Version:

The Lord is my light and my salvation—
whom should I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life—
whom should I dread?
When evildoers came against me to devour my flesh,
my foes and my enemies stumbled and fell.
Though an army deploys against me,
my heart will not be afraid;
though a war breaks out against me,
I will still be confident.