God qualifies those He calls, not the already qualified. When you move forward in confidence with His calling, insecure people will call it arrogance. The answer isn't to defend yourself but to stay silent, stay humble, and keep your eyes on what God asked you to do.
But remember this, God doesn't call the qualified, He qualifies the called. And because He has chosen you and because He'll begin to use you, people are gonna say about you that you are arrogant, that you are prideful, that you are full of self. Confidence looks like arrogance to the insecure. That is, that when you place your confidence in God, when you're confident in His power, when you're confident in His grace, when you're confident in what He's spoken for you to do, then people who are insecure will perceive that confidence as arrogance because it offends their insecurities. Now, this doesn't mean that we're immune to being arrogant or that we're immune to pride. You have to watch for those things, of course. But this does mean that if you're gonna dare to believe that God wants to use you, If you're gonna dare to believe the dreams that he's placed in your heart, if you're gonna dare to believe that God has instructed you to perform a specific task or a specific spiritual mission, then people are going to label you as arrogant. People are going to say that you're prideful. People will say that you're self-absorbed. If the Lord calls you to write a book, people will say, who wants to read that book? Who do you think that you are? If God calls you to begin to do social media posts, People are gonna say, well, you just wanna be famous, or you think you're special, or you think you're a celebrity. If you feel you're called by God to preach or to teach or to serve in any ministry capacity, people may say about you, how arrogant to think that God would actually want to use you. What makes you so special? What makes you so different? But remember, it's the favor of God. And so people around you, and sadly, even people who love you, even close friends, even close family members can become jealous or offended by your confidence in God. And they may say, say that you're arrogant. The response to this isn't to criticize them back. The response to this isn't to say, well, you're not spiritual, or you don't have the deeper things of God, or, or you don't have the relationship with God that I have. That would be arrogant to respond in that way. Rather, just be silent. Let them make their criticisms. Stay focused on God. Stay focused on what he's called you to do. They'll call you arrogant, but remember that your confidence is in God, and that confidence looks like arrogance to the insecure.
