Biography
Dr. Richard Foster is a writer, teacher, and church renewal expert. Well-known for his best-selling book, Celebration of Discipline, Richard's several books on spiritual development have become modern-day devotional classics. He's a three-time winner of the prestigious Gold Medallion Book Award, and his work has been translated into many languages throughout the world. Dr. Foster is Professor of Spiritual Formation at Azusa Pacific University in California. He was the founder of Renovaré, an organization whose mission is to nurture Christian spirituality in contemporary culture. He is also a minister in the Quaker church and lives in Colorado. [Biographical information is correct as of the broadcast date noted above.]

"Living Confidently in God"
Hear now the Word of the Lord through the prophet Isaiah: "Thus saith the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, in returning and rest shall you be saved. In quietness and confidence shall be your strength." (Isaiah 30:15)

I am concerned to speak with you today about "confidence." I'm really talking about strength, but not directly. I want to try to describe where strength comes from. Over the years I have been profoundly struck by the lack of confidence which people have and this is true even in those area in which folks are supposed to be experts. When we take people outside of very narrow boundaries, where their habits allow them to basically sleep through what they're doing, they lose all of the confidence that they had and, in fact, what often passes for confidence today is not really confidence at all. It could be more accurately described as "unconsciousness." Confidence is a rare thing today.

Do you remember what the Apostle Paul said to the Corinthians? "We are always confident." Always confident. Now I doubt that too many of us could say that. I want to explore the reason why Paul could say it and why it is such a rare thing today. I want to explore that issue by calling your attention to a classic passage on confidence found in the tiny book of First John and I want to read from the third chapter and beginning with the 18th verse.

It starts this way: "Little children,"--I like that. In one sense we are all little children, aren't we?--"let us love not in word or speech but in truth and action. And by this we will know that we are of the truth and will reassure our hearts before God whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything. Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and we receive from him whatever we ask because we obey his commandments and do what pleases him. Beloved, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God."

But you see, I find that many of the places where I go that people do have hearts that condemn them. Now let me be just as plain as I possibly can about this condemnation of the heart. What is it? It's the feeling that somehow I'm not right. I find people of all ages and all sizes and all colors have hearts that condemn them and there are three things that the heart uses to condemn us. I want to mention them and then return to that passage for a comment or two.

First of all, there is condemnation of the heart for who we are.

I mean very simply the fact that we are a man or that we are a woman or that we have a particular kind of body. We feel that we're too tall or we're too short, or too fat or we're too thin, or we have big ears or we have freckles. All the condemnation that people labor under just because of who they are. The world is full of people who have something to sell and something to get out of others who will condemn them, and who will build up associations in their minds that will get them to condemn themselves. We are condemned because of the way we dress. We are condemned because of the way we smell. We are condemned because we have too much hair. We are condemned because we don't have enough hair. Now how do you get out of that? You don't. You see, it is an essential feature of a fallen world that it is filled with condemnation.

Now we do not have to look very deeply behind that to see a fundamental strategy of the enemy of our souls to get us to believe that God is not good. We are who we are and somehow who we are is not right and so how can God be good?

But then second, there is condemnation for where we are.

Not just who we are but where we are. Now I think that this is a little easier to deal with than the other, but it is a rare thing today to find people who feel completely right and good in the kind of job that they have or the place where they live, or the family that they are in. There is so much shame in families, for example: husbands ashamed of wives and wives ashamed of husbands, parents ashamed of children and children ashamed of parents. I wish it weren't so. I wish I could stand here and say to you that's only an illusion, but it's not. All of these places where people are. The job that I have? It's not right. The family that I'm in? It's not right. The place where I live? It's not right and I'm condemned.

And then third, there is condemnation for what we do.

Not just who we are and where we are but what we do. Now right here I just have to say that a lot of the condemnation is completely justified. Of course, if we want to condemn somebody and we're trying to find a basis upon which to do it, we can find it in all of these areas, can't we? Condemnation for the things that we do and for things that we don't do. One of the reasons that it is so hard for us to share our faith with those who know us well is that they know how we live and they know what we do and have done.

There is condemnation for sin, wrong doing. That's true guilt and Jesus the Christ came that that might be dealt with. But there is also condemnation for things which are not sins, just mistakes. For example, a failure in business, or a wrong decision about a purchase to make, or a job to take or a place to live. You see, all of this condemnation just heaps up upon people and the effect of that is to make people completely without strength, completely without hope, completely without faith in God beyond the bare minimum of believing that somehow he might get them to heaven when they die.

As I've been speaking, perhaps you have recognized yourself, condemning your heart. If that's so, I want you to listen closely to the 20th verse of that third chapter of First John because it says this: "If our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts and he knows everything."

Now I want to give you two readings to that verse. The first you have already thought of because it is so easy for us to believe that God is the great all-time condemner and if my heart condemns me, my measly little heart, wait until God gets a hold of me. You see, God knows me in a way that my heart can never know me. That's a fearful reality, isn't it? We feel that God may really let us have it.

But now I want to give you another reading to that verse and I believe that it is a valid reading. It is that many times our hearts condemn us for things which God does not condemn us. I've seen people with condemnation of the heart because they've never gotten married or because they have gotten married, or condemnation of the heart because they have no children or because they do have children. May I remind you in one significant passage that Satan is described as the accuser of the brothers and the sisters. See, he understands that accusation by itself destroys. If he can simply keep a constant barrage of accusation coming against you, he will have you defeated because you will be spending all of your time and all of your energy trying to deal with that accusation. That's why it is so important for us to hear this other reading to this verse.

It is important to be able to say that on many occasions when my heart is condemning me, God is greater than my old condemning heart. He knows that there is nothing to be condemned, and may I just say that extends all the way back to all the sins and the sorrows of the past. Many people have been forgiven on the basis of their faith in Christ and his death for them, but they have never forgiven themselves. They have never known the release from that old condemning heart. If you feel condemnation of your heart today, may I just remind you God is greater than your condemning heart. Do you remember that it was said of Jesus that he would not break a bruised reed nor quench a smoldering wick? Once Jesus said, "I am not come to condemn the world." Oh, hear that. God is greater than your condemning heart!

But let me close my remarks on a little more practical level by asking what we might be able to do, to go about developing confidence before God. Very simply it begins right where we are--in the jobs that we have, in the families that we are in, with our neighbors and our friends. Now I wish that did not sound so trite, because it is the profoundest truth on a practical level that we will ever have or learn about walking with God. You see, the only place that God can bless you is right where you are because that is the only place you are.

Do you remember Moses at the burning bush? God had to tell him to take off his shoes. He did not know that it was holy ground. If we can just come to understand that right where we are is holy ground and it is there that we build a history with God and learn to walk confidently with God. "Thus saith the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, in returning and rest shall you be saved. In quietness and confidence shall be your strength."

Interview with Richard Foster
Interviewed by Lydia Talbot

Lydia Talbot: Richard, a marvelous message on how our hearts so often lead to self-condemnation. We're talking about loss of confidence, loss of self-esteem. I must ask you, has that ever been revealed to you personally?

Richard Foster: Oh, indeed. I think that one of the deepest things in my own life was to recognize the sense of a condemning heart and learn that God wanted to free me from that.

Talbot: What was that about?

Foster: Well, we were just talking a little earlier about my own parents who died when I was fairly young.

Talbot: You were a teenager?

Foster: Yes, and then trying to deal with all of those kinds of feelings that you have about that and how to live and so on. I spent some time among Eskimo Christians when I was a teenager, and it was a great help to just watch some of these people who really knew how to live confidently before God. I mean they lived right on the edge of the elements above the Arctic Circle and just to watch them, to watch them live in front of God with confidence. I mean they faced great tragedies in their lives and yet knowing that God was with them. I learned a lot from them.

Talbot: So that example then gave you a sense of strength. But you also convey to us that we are not alone.

Foster: Absolutely.

Talbot: Talk more about that: looking to God for strength.

Foster: That's exactly right. One of the most important things is to realize first, that God is; and second, that God is here; and third, that God is good. You remember in that passage I was reading in I John a little earlier, he says "We share with you what we have heard from him." Now just try to imagine what you would say if you wanted to sum up everything that you knew about God in one phrase. This was the way John put it, "God is light and in him is no darkness at all." Oh when I read that, really read it, I saw that God is good and God is out to do me good.

Talbot: And yet it is in the darkness, isn't it--when people who are listening now, who perhaps are experiencing deep despair, loss of a loved one or serious illness--that we realize that we are not alone.

Foster: That's where God really shows up. You know, God's address is at the end of our rope.

Talbot: You must talk for a moment about your latest book, Streams of Living Water.

Foster: Oh, bless you.

Talbot: Wonderful dimensions, six dimensions of the faith. How is it that we connect with those streams in moments like this?

Foster: Well, I'm glad you mentioned that. Streams of Living Water actually came from a dear friend who had this picture of the streams of life, these great traditions in life and actually dimensions of the Christian life flowing out from the throne of God and meeting together in a great river, a River of God. As I began to see that and see how that connected historically and so on, I began to see how that our lives--a prayer-filled life, a virtuous life, a spirit-empowered life, a compassionate life, a word-centered life, an incarnational, sacramental life--could flow together, you see. I work into the book a lot of wonderful examples all through history.

Talbot: And you emphasize a new gathering of people that you projected. Here we are on the edge of the millennium. Who are the people?

Foster: Can I say that came actually about a decade ago in a very dark period in my life, a kind of dark night of the soul.

Talbot: What was going on?

Foster: Well, God had basically told me to just shut up. I stopped all speaking. I stopped all writing. When I began that period, I didn't know if I would ever write or speak again. I thought I would not. As it turned out, that period lasted about eighteen months.

Talbot: Were you ill?

Foster: No. Oh, no. God really had to teach me a lot about myself.

Talbot: You were struggling?

Foster: Basically, that the world can go on quite well without me. When I saw that, I remembered what Thomas á Kempis said, "The only person who is safe to speak is the person who is free to be quiet." Ah! And when I learned that--that I don't have to talk all of the time--I learned it isn't my job to save the world.

Talbot: You are a Quaker.

Foster: Yes.

Talbot: And, of course, Quakers are a historic peace church. That sense of faith, that faith style, must have informed you about that question.

Foster: From many of the dear Quakers especially. For example, when my parents were dying, the actual church community became family for me and taught me a great deal about living with

God, a kind of extended family life. Yes, I learned a lot. Peace, both in the sense of dealing with my own need to control or to manage or be at war with myself and peace with others. And a freedom not to manage or control other people. I was learning that during that period.

Talbot: And that vision of the church is what it's all about.

Foster: Indeed. You see that God brings together an all-inclusive community of loving persons with himself at the center of that community as its prime sustainer and most glorious inhabitant.

Talbot: Thank you. A beautiful message to conclude with. Thank you so much, Richard Foster.