Confidence - 2 Corinthians 5:6-7

Talking about the body/spirit connection that we experience in this life, Paul uses an interesting word to describe how our attitudes should be. He says “therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord.” The footnote for the word “confident” says, “of good courage, of good cheer,” meaning that even though we are separated from God at this point of our journey, we should still have the courage to be obedient and to be happy despite less than ideal circumstances. Interestingly though, a friend of mine once sent me an article entitled “Doer of Our Deeds and the Speaker of Our Words,” where the author M. Catherine Thomas discussed the myth of self-esteem. When he first said that self-esteem was a myth, I was a little irritated because I myself have struggled so long and hard against feelings of worthlessness. But after reading the article, I became convinced of the correctness of that principle. The concept that she taught hinged on the words “confident” or “confidence” in the scriptures. So when Paul uses that word here, or at least that’s how it’s translated, is very powerful to me.

 

There are a couple of different ways that we can look at Paul’s statement in verse 6. The first way is the one most familiar, that we are physically removed from God’s presence in this mortality because of the fall. The IM comments, “part of God’s plan is that when we were born, a veil was placed over our minds to cover the memory of our premortal heavenly home.” The confidence here comes in to play when we don’t view this separation as a punishment and instead accept it to be the opportunity that we asked for, to learn and grow by faith. Indeed Paul notes “for we walk by faith, not by sight.” When we lived in the premortal world, we saw Heavenly Father and trusted him because we knew him personally. But it also wasn’t an obvious no brainer because 1/3 of the spirits among us chose not to walk by sight. This is to say that while walking by sight was probably infinitely easier than walking by faith, it was still a struggle, it wasn’t a stroll in the park, we still had agency and we still had to exercise it, and we still had to make choices on who to trust and believe.

 

The second way that Paul’s statement could be understood comes from the article on this chapter from gospeldoctrine.com, which says, “we are ‘at home in the body’ when we gratify the requests of the carnal man. The perpetual pampering and pleasure seeking may help the body feel at home, but they always drive the spirit into a self-made prison- a prison so secure that neither Jesus nor the Holy Spirit are granted visitation. Elder Maxwell noted, ‘it is so easy to become imprisoned in the single well-lit cell of one impulse and one appetite.’ Naturally, a regular response to the siren of sin inevitably drives us away from the Lord, for ‘the natural man is an enemy to God.’ Hence, while ‘we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord.’”

 

It’s interesting that the concept of enslavement to bodily appetites comes up today because I was listening to the radio yesterday and the song “Master of Puppets” by Metallica came on, and I love Metallica. But listening to the words, it talks about cocaine addiction becoming the master of the person addicted. Thinking through this, I thought that it was interesting that this was a metal rock band that probably isn’t viewed as too wholesome by the general public, teaching gospel principles, namely that of mastery over self. It made me realize that this is not a novel concept that the gospel is teaching people when advocating a life free from compulsion.  We just talked extensively last week about the idea of liberty and what that truly means in terms of the gospel and this life, and this concept is very in line with what we discovered, that freedom is the ability to choose.