Sometimes we may have the idea that confident faith means feeling sure. Sure of the outcome. Sure the diagnosis will improve, the prayer will be answered the way we prayed it, the story will unfold the way we wrote it in our heads.
Then life hands us a child whose needs leave us deeply concerned about the future and our abilities in the present, and the sureness collapses. And because we were taught that confidence and certainty are the same thing, we draw the obvious conclusion: our faith must be weak.
It isn’t. We were just measuring the wrong thing.
Paul wrote to Timothy from a Roman prison, near the end of his life, with no reason to expect release: “…for I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me.” (2 Timothy 1:12, ESV). Notice what Paul was sure of—and what he wasn’t. He had no certainty about his circumstances. He didn’t know the verdict, the timeline, or the outcome. His confidence rested on a single word: whom. Not what. Not how. Not when.
Certainty is trusting information—outcomes, timelines, prognoses. Confidence is trusting a Person—His character, HIs presence, His faithfulness. Certainty shatters the moment something goes wrong, situations change, or we get overwhelmed. Confidence can take a punch, because it was never resting on circumstances or us in the first place.
Those of us raising children with varying needs know the certainty chase well. We collect evaluations and second opinions. We read the studies. We ask the specialist the question she has already told us she can’t answer: what will his life look like at twenty-five? Gathering information is good stewardship—we must keep doing it. But if we’re using information to manufacture certainty, it will always come up short, because no report on earth can promise an outcome. We end up anxious and well-informed.
Confident faith makes a different move. It takes everything we cannot know and entrusts it to Someone we do know. Paul’s handed the outcome over, the way you hand something precious to a keeper you trust, and he considered it guarded. That’s available to us on the worst day of the evaluation cycle, because it never depended on the evaluation.
This week, let’s litsen to our prayers. Are we asking God to confirm the plan, or entrusting Him with the child? There’s a sentence prayer worth practicing until it becomes reflex adn finds its way into our prayers (It’s actually a line from an old song I used to listen to): “I may not know what the future holds, but I know Who holds the future.” That sentence reminds us of the reality we truly live in and that we must hold on to. God truly is sovereign. He is in control. He loves our children more than we ever could. And He knows them and their future.
The future may seem uncertain for many reasons, and we may find it hard to let go of the concerns about our children’s futures, but we can find comfort, confidence, and rest in the heart of God.
Releasing what we can’t control is a practice. The Family PEACE Challenge walks your family through it one step at a time: 7-Day Challenge, Part 1: 7 Days to Fewer Blowups at Home