This is how the Bible defines confidence according to bibletools.com - "faith in God, certainty and assurance of one's relationship with God, a sense of boldness that is dependent on a realization of one's acceptance by God, and a conviction that one's destiny is secure in God."
Hebrews 13:6 says, “So we can say with confidence, ‘The Lord is my helper, so I will have no fear. What can mere people do to me?’”
When I was younger, I worried about what others thought about me or what they would say about me. It became such a big deal that I wouldn’t do certain things because if I failed and others knew then they would probably talk about me behind my back. I also withdrew from others and just stuck to myself because in those lies that the enemy were feeding me my self confidence was very low.
As I have gotten older and turned my thoughts the the Lord, I have come to care less and less about all that and know that my confidence is in the Lord. I am made in His image, and I don’t need to worry about worldly things and focus on the fact that He is here for me no matter what is going on around me.
We need to keep in mind that the enemy will use all He can to keep our eyes off the Lord.
There can be so many places we can choose to put our confidence other than God that we may not even realize. We need to keep our eyes open and our hearts on God.
We don’t need to put our confidence in our own ability but in God, the one who makes up able because out God is able.
James 1:5-7 says, “If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking. But when you ask him, be sure that your faith is in God alone. Do not waver, for a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind. Such people should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Their loyalty is divided between God and the world, and they are unstable in everything they do."
When trying to get confidence in temporary and superficial things, we end up unstable and unsettled. But when we look to the Lord and know what He does and says is true we will be unwavering in our faith and in our confidence in the Lord.
One way build our confidence is by obeying the Lord - God’s word is powerful, and even just reading it builds faith, but the real confidence comes from applying it.
James 1:22-25 says, “But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves. For if you listen to the word and don’t obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror. You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like. But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it."
When we look in a mirror and don't really study what we see we can forget to apply it to memory and have to go back and look again. Getting into God's word is the same. When we read but don't commit to memory what we read and apply it to our lives we can forget what we read.
There is an understanding, belief, and confidence that can only come when we do what God tells us.