Friday 25 April 2014

WHY SOME STUDENTS FAIL: THE OVERCONFIDENCE FACTOR

While fear makes you perform below your capability, overconfidence, which is an excessive trust that you can do something successfully, can make you fail also.
          When you believe too much in yourself, you soon begin to underestimate God and others—even those who are in a position to help you. If you do that, God will no longer be on the scene in your life. Arrogance will become the norm. You will not care about other people’s feelings, thereby hurting them even when you are right. You will become repulsive. Grace will no longer follow you. And you will do things out of context. When you are asked a question that requires a simple answer, out of arrogance and the desire to show off, you will give an elaborate and exaggerated answer. Your intent is not to give an answer but to prove that you have knowledge, even when it is not needed. So you end up saying what is relevant and what is irrelevant. This sort of thing seems to happen to people who do not learn that they can help others; instead they intimidate and oppress others. They first want to show that they know better and are therefore superior.

          To overcome this, you need the grace of God to be humble. Proverbs 3:5–7 says, “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Be not wise in thine eyes: fear the Lord, and depart from evil.”(KJV) Someone asked me some time ago how an exam was going to be. I answered, “We are looking unto God.” He replied with great surprise, saying, “People like us are calling on God, and you too will be calling on God?!” He expected me to depend on my intelligence. But an understanding of the Word of God had delivered me from such a trap. Even when you know something, “don’t be wise in your own eyes”; depend on the help of God to make the task easier for you, or you will end up messing things up for yourself.

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