Tell us about you! (Where you’re from, family life, church, ministry, podcast)
- Bailey Stone is a Montana raised blogger, podcaster, speaker and soon to be certified Life Coach. She is the founder of This Illustrious Life and host of The Illustrious Podcast. Bailey aims to empower women in the pursuit of their God-given calling through personal development practices that boost confidence and clarity. Bailey loves baking, taking walks with her husband Kyle and nurturing an ever growing army of houseplants.
2) I’ve been so eager to sit down and dig into confidence rooted in Christ with you. As women we’re living in a time where confidence is displayed more apart from Christ than with Him at the center. Can you share biblically speaking what true confidence looks like!
- I too have been so excited for this conversation because you are absolutely right! Whenever I prepare to make content on confidence I always hear that Demi Lovato song “what’s wrong with being confident” and while that’s a catchy tune it grieves me a little bit because when we place our confidence in ourselves we are setting ourselves up for disappointment, and heartache and ultimately the antithesis of confidence!
- Because the truth is we humans are fallible. We are created with amazing abilities but we all fall short of the glory, we all fail and we all make mistakes so if we are the sole source of our confidence, we’re bound to be let down...
- So with that in mind I want to dig into scripture a bit and explore what God’s design for confidence is. I few prominent figures always come to mind when I think about Biblical confidence like Ruth, Esther and Abigail but today I wanted to throw out some verses that your audience could explore and meditate on...
- First, I love Romans 8:37 which says, “You are more than a conqueror through Christ”. That word conqueror makes me feel so powerful like I am capable of crazy cool things BUT the caveat is those last two words “through Christ”. What this verse means to me is that I can do big, bold things but ultimately the source of my confidence is in my gifts and abilities is Christ.
- I also love the encouragement we are given in Hebrews 4:16 one of the only verses in the bible to use the word confidence. Hebrews 4:16 says this”Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need”.
- So not only can we be confident in ourselves but we can boldly approach our creator. What this means to me is that I don’t necessarily have to rely on my own gifts and talents and trust that God is hanging out in the sidelines. This means that when I am feeling insecure, when I am scared I can run to the source of my confidence and get a fresh injection of that confidence.
- So Romans 8:37 - I can have confidence in myself and my endeavors because of Christ.
- Hebrews 4:16 - I can boldly approach my God and the source of my confidence and a final verse I want to throw out, Joshua 1:9 which is a life verse for me.
- Joshua 1:9 says “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”
- Those three verses as well as stories from women in the Bible like the ones I mentioned above have really shaped my understanding of confidence. It’s boldness, it’s reliance on Christ and it’s courage.
3) Something that many people get confused with when it comes to confidence (and I see many women doing this right now) is they think just because a dream is on their heart it means God will make it happen. They believe if a dream is on my heart then why wouldn’t He do it? How do you/would you walk a woman through this thought process of needing to be confident in the abilities/giftings God has given them BUT also understand that just because we “want” to do something with those gifts doesn’t mean He will do it. Because for some women if He doesn’t do it - then they allow that to weaken their confidence in Him.
- Again, you hit the nail on the head. It is SO easy to runaway with the beautiful dreams that God plants in our hearts and that’s an analogy that I like to use a lot. I like to think of God planting little seeds.
- When we start to see little seeds sprout we can get carried away and start overwatering or exposing our “seeds” to too much sunlight or buying fancy gardening gadgets and gizmos to make our little “seedlings” or dreams flourish. But God is the ultimate gardener and apart from his lead, again, we are setting ourselves up for disappointment. For rot, decay, and sometimes death.
- When we place our confidence in God he is faithful to see our dreams through to fruition.
4) I’d love to hear some of your story in this area of being a confident Godly woman. Did you have a season where you saw your confidence wasn’t rooted in Him or did you feel like you lacked confidence in Christ because of something not happening the way you desired.
- I have always been pretty naturally confident. From a young age I was pretty “large and in charge” which is funny because I’ve always been a tiny blonde thing. And I’ve had a really strong relationship with Lord from a young age too.
- I was that girl going to church at least 2-3 times a week and participating in all the summer camps, church events and volunteer opportunities.
- But it was around age 12 that I started to first feel a wane in my confidence and my faith. From ages 12-14 I became REALLY hyper aware of what other people thought and I started to drift farther and farther from my faith and actually found myself in a pretty dark time by the age of 17.
- I was crippled with anxiety, filled with a self loathing that expressed itself in gossip and anger and a bit of paranoia and I would have to say that that was the lowest point in my life so far. I was separated from God and I was so depleted of confidence.
- And I don’t think my story is super unique or surprising because A LOT of young girls start to experience a confidence shift at that age. Your body is changing, your social climate and skills are changing at break neck speed and suddenly, for a lot of us, the opinions of others start to feel a lot more important than God’s opinion.
- Fast forward a few years and I really got my confidence back after my freshman year of college. I’m not a confidence legend and I certainly don’t have the concept of confidence mastered but when I returned back to God full force and moved farther and farther away from what others thought of me (which is still a daily struggle) the more confident I got and the more clarity I received about my calling which is why I’m so passionate about confidence and clarity work today!
5) I think Rahab is a beautiful example from the Bible of being confident in her God. (Joshua 2) Her story was one of much suffering, terrible life choices, but a mustard seed of faith. How can you and I + all other believers help steward women away from their suffering to true confident relationship with Christ?
- Such a great question. I’m a huge advocate of community over competition. As women I think we struggle with cheering each other on and supporting each other and in that kind of world it's hard to inspire confidence in one another.
- So the first thing I would say is support other women. When you see something that God has uniquely equipped a fellow sister in Christ to do, cheer her on!
- And how do we do that? We silently observe, listen and use our words sparingly.
- So to break that down, when you see a fellow sister is Christ doing something great encourage her! Let her know she’s rocking that mom life, let her know you see her crushing that side business she’s got going on our even just simply remind a friend that you appreciate her perspective. Encouragement doesn’t have to be big grand gestures or speeches, it’s often just a simple, unexpected word.
- Next, sisters, I know many of us love to chat! But, man, I haven’t met very many humans that genuinely love to listen. And it doesn’t necessarily build confidence to give unsolicited advice and lecture one another. What really inspires confidence is the feeling of being heard and having valid feelings. We all love that feeling of being able to pour out our heart and just be heard, right? Extending that feeling of “your worthy of being heard” can be a HUGE confidence boost!
- Finally, I want to throw out this idea that unsolicited advice can be a big confidence killer and I see this ALL the time in the church. We blow right past the two things I just mentioned, listening and encouraging and we rush right to scolding, blaming and shaming. There is a time and place for Christ like correction but I would caution anyone listening to check how often they are correcting versus listening and encouraging.
6) You and I address on your podcast holy endurance over hustle culture. I think confidence fits right in with that. The hustle culture preaches the message of a selfish self confidence (in my opinion — you can disagree if you feel so and we can talk through that!). How do you blend the two of being bold in your calling but keeping your confidence rooted in Him.
- I actually couldn’t agree more. This is such a tricky tightrope to walk. Walking this tightrope, so to speak, requires a high degree of sensitivity. Sensitivity to what God is speaking, what He is up to and what His will is.
- We know that we can be confident in Christ, we know that we have each been given unique gifts, skills, talents, passions and burdens to fulfil our calling but we also know that apart from God we are susceptible to heartbreak, failure or wild success. Success that ultimately leads us astray from God.
- So my commission to anyone who wants to be bold in their calling with a confidence rooted in Christ is to be sensitive. Take time for stillness, silence and solitude. And again, these are things that I am not perfect at but I value because I know they lead to the source of both clear direction and confidence in my calling.
- Lately, for me, this has looked like being really slow to take action. I have to ask “God is this from you” and if it’s not I have to walk away and that’s been so hard because I’m a girl who like to hustle for her worth.
- So again, be sensitive, slow down, find some stillness (the opposite of hustle) and have confidence in your God to sift and sieve the assignments in your life that truly align with where you are being uniquely called in this season. This may sound like the opposite of boldness too but the more concentrated your energies are on the things that are aligned with God’s call the bolder and better you can be in those pursuits.
7) If someone were to ask you what they needed to begin living with less of in regards to John 3:30, “He must increase, I must decrease." what would you tell them and why!
- I feel like I should say less insecurity to stay on topic BUT honestly I think I would say less hurting and more healing.
- I feel like in order to become less we have to do some hard, personal work which is why I am so passionate about personal development. I feel like we can be better wives, sisters, moms, mentors and disciples when we have less baggage and bruising from our past because the longer we carry that heavy load and wounding around the less effective our witness is.
- When we’re stuck in hurts from the past we are more focused on ourselves than we realize. Doing the hard work of work on yourself which actually equips you to extend more love and kindness to others which is what being a disciple is all about.
- I’ll not here that I’m not necessarily talking about BIG traumas. I think it’s obviously important to work through those but I don’t want to communicate that you're a crappy Christian because you have some deep wounding from the past that you haven’t recovered from. What I’m saying here is identify your blindspots, your character defects and your biases so that you can become a more effective witness.
- Ultimately, this kind of hard work that leads to healing can really inspire confidence not only in yourself but in those you have influence over so there you go I brought it all together!
8) What have been your current favorite worship songs!
- Okay, I love that we are talking about confidence today because the worship song I ALWAYS return to and constantly have on repeat is Confident by Steffany Gretzinger.
Find Bailey here!
Podcast - The Illustrious Podcast
Website - thisillwstriouslife.com
IG - @thisillustriouslife
