"Cocky", related to "cocksure", defined as "prefectly sure or certain, completely confident."Last night, at the beginning of a fencing lesson, practicing something that threatens me to no end but that I must get over...
....Kelly made the comment that I needed to fence cocky.
With an attitude of "this is my strip. you want to hit me? come try"
Several thoughts/reactions zoomed through me:
1. "Well that's nice for someone who's good enough to think that."
2. "I'm supposed to have WHAT kind of attitude?"
3. Sheer terror: "Live with assurance and confidence? You're kidding, right?"
Needless to say, I did not come out of that practice drill feeling cocky.
I felt threatened to the point of severe stress.
Sadly, I once did live life from a place of assurance, confidence, whatever.
It took about 10 people 20 years to get it out of me.
So it was there pretty solid.
And now it's gone pretty solidly.
And I find that I miss it.
I really really miss it.
But how do you get it back?
My Rome wasn't torn down in a day.
It took 20 years.
How do you rebuild it and how long does it take?
Or maybe it really is just a decision.
I know it's there. I so know it's there.
I am fully aware of what kind of authority, power, control, whatever that I carry.
It's that "thing" that unnerves people when they don't know what to expect.
But I'm afraid of it.
Afraid, and aware, that if I ever ever use it wrongly it would be destructive beyond explanation.
I think I really am choosing not to fight/live cocky.
Which, now that Kelly has pointed it out, is really stupid.
So, I guess I've just become familiar with living in a position I was not created to live in.
Oh and all the better when we hyper-spiritualize it.
Which I have been handed ad nauseum.
Somehow I have been taught that "vengeance is mine, thus sayeth the Lord" and "be meek" means "don't ever have any assurance, don't ever defend yourself, don't be strong, don't admit you have any gifts/talents, downplay your very existence."
Maybe that is a bulls*@# interpretation.
I think it is.
Maybe the interpretation is: "don't rip someone's head off and be a jerk just because they were mean, instead, bluntly but kindly state that they are wrong and deal with it."
I'm pretty sure that's what my New Testament says.
Now that I am really honest with my own heart.
Rabbit trails aside, back to fighting cocky.
Kelly's comment, which was right on, made me think of a conversation with Jane yesterday.
I think God is trying to drive home a point.
Like that never happens at the fencing center.
Anyway.
Jane was talking to me about how she had seen a real sword in my hand in the Spirit.
That I had a calling on my life for deliverance.
Funny. That's exactly the call Kelly has on her life.
Even though I see so much of myself (or who I was) in her, I never put that one together.
So, yeah, I told Jane a story about what happened two years ago that caused me to "fear" my own authority.
It involved a battle I was engaged in with a witchcraft spirit over the life of a friend.
The authority that rose up in me was unbelievable.
In the spirit you could see it as a white cloud coming forth from my gut.
The spirit vanished instantly.
I was shocked by the measure of authority and shut down thinking if something like that were ever misused it would be horrid.
And I feared the misuse.
Too much so.
Damn it.
I think I shut down completely during that season.
...maybe here is the key to cockiness....
.....to assurance and confidence.....
.....both in the physical and the spiritual.....
I cannot stay shut down.
Not on any level.
And I hear Kelly again echoing in my head "Leigh, you just take things too far."
And I hear Jessica aggravating me because I "remove everything for a 100 miles radius".
Both are the same principle.
I need to make an honest assessment of where I am...
....whether in fencing....my spiritual life....whatever....
and function from that place of reality.
THAT is true humility.
I need wisdom in my walking,
but there is no call to think less of myself that I ought
anymore than I should think more highly of myself than I ought.
God, forgive me.
What have I done?
Kelly is so right --
This IS my strip.
And I want to fight "cocky"....
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