Georg was a great teacher.
The verdict on me as a student is debatable.
I felt like I fell really well. I felt like my right leg really did it’s job well. The left leg and every other muscle in my body still need work.
Part of the problem was that I sometimes lacked confidence.
‘The snow will hold you,’ Georg kept saying. ‘You just have to be relaxed, balanced and cool,’ he said to me as I was shuffling up an incline.
When I felt confident and relaxed I got it. The second I began to think about falling, going too fast or how to break (which I never really understood) things got a bit...hairy.
Confidence alone will not help me learn French, but having the confidence to use it and make mistakes will. Very few people corrected my everyday English in America and I never can say that I randomly forgot the word for ‘7’ or ‘50’ yet almost anytime I’m out and about I say something that makes no sense and am graced with a French speaking mercy shower to laugh with or at me and tell me the correct way of saying something so simple!
Confidence alone will not make me a qualified surgeon. Confidence alone does not change a hard heart or determine a spiritual gift.
Confidence does allow a person who is gifted or skill to further explore what using those gifts or skills will do for themselves, their neighbors, the world and God.
Psalm 27 says-
I remain confident of this:
I will see the goodness of the Lord
in the land of the living.
Wait for the Lord;
be strong and take heart
and wait for the Lord.
We are all facing some sort of struggle. Even when life is good there is something that nags at us. Some pain we have. Some friend who needs something. Whether one is in language school in France, teaching English in Japan, building fences in South Africa or driving to work in Pittsburgh there will be struggles.
If there is anything we can be confident in it is that God will show Himself here. We don’t have to wait for some far off time or another lifetime, God will show Himself. Take confidence in knowing that there is a God who is active every day. Wait on the results here and even when everything feels empty or all hope is lost, he will show Himself in wonderful ways. While I might fail at asking for a cup of milk or telling someone a phone number, God will not fail in showing His goodness. My own abilities might take not cut it, but God’s gifts are more than enough.