Don’t tell me we don’t have man issues. I won’t believe you. Maybe you are a rare exception, but this I know: If you are a real, live, honest-to-goodness secure woman who is neither obsessed with a man’s affirmation or nursing a grudge against a man, you did not arrive at that place by accident. No one did. To get a few things out on the table:
1. Men are certainly not the only source of insecurity/security for women.
2. I am not a man-basher. Nothing could be further from the truth. I adore my husband, my dad and my brothers. Nobody can make me laugh like them. Nobody can make me think the way they do. Few people have access to my heart like they do. They are worthy of my respect.
However, we cannot get security from a gender that doesn’t have much to spare. The culture we live in is just as merciless on men as it is on women. Their insecurities take on different shapes than ours, but make no mistake: they’ve got them. Maybe you’ve elevated men so high in your thinking and given them so much credit that you can’t see their frailties. Maybe all your friends are guys and its girls you don’t trust. If all your hopes and dreams are spun around men like silver crowns on kings, you are not seeing clearly. Men aren’t demons and they aren't gods.
One psychologist said “The insecure person also harbors unrealistic expectations about love and relationships. These expectations, for themselves and for others, are often unconscious. The insecure person creates a situation in which being disappointed and hurt in relationships is almost inevitable. Ironically, although insecure people are easily and frequently hurt, they are usually unaware of how they are unwitting accomplices in creating their own misery.”
Strangely, women who have been seriously injured by a man don’t always respond by avoiding them. Sometimes they become emotionally enslaved to them. Sometimes we are determined to fix them. To make them into the person we believe they could be. We cannot be God in a boyfriend/husband’s life. The right one for you will be right from the beginning. You will not have to change him, you will not have to fix him. He will bring out the best in you. He will not make you feel inferior to him. He will not blame you for his failures. Dathaniel is my unpredictable loose cannon. If he feels strong-armed into doing something, he suddenly develops a voracious appetite to do the exact opposite. God has used him more powerfully in my life than anyone else on the planet, precisely because I cannot manage him. He wouldn’t mind telling you that he has a rebellious root against normality so deep that to pull it up could cause a tremor throughout the entire state of Texas
Where the devil attacked me when it came to fixing guys is that God does instruct us to help each other. It is biblical to lift one another up. So, how can we tell when help has morphed into a co-dependent relationship and quest for control? The first clue is when the helper is the one doing all the work! Why are there so many people who talk a big talk about what they need to do but then won’t do it? Sometimes it’s because there’s something about unhappiness that is working for them. It could be the attention they’re getting from you or the excuse they’re milking. Some won’t do what it takes to liberate themselves because their particular form of bondage provides a momentary respite from real life. You can’t make them do something else. You can’t force them. Only God can change someone and even He has to be allowed to do so. We are not in charge. We are called to cherish, support, and pray for others, but entangling our lives with them and tying our security to them is a lost cause.
There are also people in this world who prefer us to be insecure and have a sick need to keep us that way. Maybe one day I'll share my entire story, but for now I'll just say my first husband figured out my insecurities and used them to control me. These people are what specialists call “emotional predators.” The Bible describes this person as someone who worms his or her way into lives to gain control of weak-willed people. Have you ever been in a relationship where you believed to be in love, yet felt an odd sense of relief when the relationship ended? With me, I was relieved to finally make my own choices. I could make decisions for myself without feeling like I wasn’t smart enough to do so, without being scared of the reaction my decision would get from the guy I was with. I no longer felt manipulated into doing things I didn’t want to do. A person cannot be whole in a relationship where he or she feels powerless to make healthy choices. Whether male or female, any person who enjoys and exploits another’s insecurity and sensitivity is an emotional predator. See if this description makes your skin crawl like it did mine:
Emotional predators learn that being aggressive often gets them their way. They rely on others’ anxiety as the key to getting their way. Naturally, physical abuse should not be tolerated at all. That should be grounds for any sensible person to leave. However, many emotional predators use verbal aggression as opposed to physical aggression to dominate a relationship.
The emotional predator sometimes has redeeming qualities that complicate things considerably because they allow us to make excuses for the person and avoid drawing solid boundaries. I used to look at my ex-husband and say, “but he could be this or he could be that if he would just change or if he would just really seek a relationship with God.” Paul describes such a predator as having “a form of godliness but denying its power” (2 Timothy 3:5). We are also explicitly told to “have nothing to do with them.” 2 Timothy 3:6 says “they are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over weak-willed women…” If you are single, please don’t marry an emotional predator! If you struggle with sizable insecurity, you could be a sitting duck for one. Rethink any relationship where you tend to be remarkably and consistently weak-willed. The power to stand at a crossroad and make a good, sound choice based on a solid sense of security is a gift from God. If you often feel unable to exercise that power in your current relationship, it is most likely not God’s will for you. Get to the bottom of that weak will and find out why you’re so easily swayed by emotionally dangerous people. Know that your insecurity and consistently weak will are not doing anybody – including the emotional predator – any favors. Secular psychology calls supporting these people being an enabler. Scripture would probably call it a grace abuser. There is no greater form of extortion than the slow-bleed robbery of our sense of security. By all means, let’s not open the front door and invite the thief in to live with us. At some point in our lives, we have all handed our security over to a person who didn’t have enough of their own to stand up. How we think those people can carry us is one of life’s mysteries. Whether the damage sustained from an emotionally unhealthy person is intentional or not, we have the right to refuse people open access to our security and our dignity.
The great news is that when we let God bring some wholeness to unhealthy propensities within us, we will not only make healthier relationships, we will also enjoy them immeasurably more. In your pursuit of God-vested security, the only relationships in your life that will suffer are the significantly unhealthy ones. I’ll even go a step further: Those that are the unhealthiest of all won't even survive and probably shouldn’t!
Overcoming Insecurity Tip:
Here’s a story about insecurity and overcoming it. This brought tears to my eyes.
My father left my mom when she was pregnant with me. He only came to visit my sister and me two or three times a year. When he came, I had a strong need to hold his hand. He would take us to dinner, and I remember holding his hand and thinking “Look, look everybody! This is my daddy!” I was very insecure in my relationship with my stranger father. Praise God I now know I have an Abba Father who is no stranger to me at all. Not only does He hold my hand, but at times He carries me. He never leaves, and I’m definitely not insecure in my relationship with Him. I still have that childlike longing to show Him to the world and say “Look, look everybody! This is my Daddy!”
“May the Lord answer you when you are in trouble; may the God of Jacob make you secure” (Psalm 20:1). God knows we are insecure, but He has enough security for all of us. He gives us what we need to overcome insecurity through His word. Did you know that the same Hebrew word used as “valor” in Proverbs to describe the virtuous woman is the same Hebrew word used as “mighty” when God told Gideon “The Lord is with you, mighty warrior?” I don’t know why it is translated differently, but I know how courageous women need to be today. It is in the passage in Proverbs about this courageous, effective woman that we find the words “She is clothed with strength and dignity.” Let’s go through that statement and see why its so significant.
She is clothed…The word picture sketched by the reference of clothing speaks volumes. I don’t know about you but if I had to nail down the most common feeling I get when I’ve let my insecurity surface, it is the sense of being overexposed. I’m not crazy about human eyes having the same kind of access God does. Our first reaction when we have a wound is to cover it with our hand. It is only when someone we trust comes to us with a bandage that we’re willing to take our hand away and let that person see the wound. Even physically, the first step toward healing a wound is to clean and dress it. I find great relief in the fact that human eyes have to see my weakness through a filter, a clothing of God-given strength and dignity. I don’t have to stand before you or anybody else emotionally naked. We are well covered by God.
…with strength…Proverbs 31:25 tells us this woman of valor is clothed by two specific articles that make the perfect pair. The first is strength and it has tremendous bearing on our journey. Nothing makes us feel weaker than insecurity. Doesn’t it have the most uncanny way of making us feel like wimps? Surely someone else has said “I know better than this. I know this situation doesn’t have the power to define or diminish me. Why on earth do I let it?” Because it makes us feel weak. What would happen if, in the moment you feel hit by that miserable wave, you reminded yourself that you are a God-clothed woman of valor and you have the privilege to wear divine strength? When Scripture tells us to “put off your old self…and to put on the new self,” its inviting us to think in terms of clothing. We know what it is to stand in front of the closet deciding what to wear, changing our minds 3 or 4 times before we leave the house. Romans 13:14 tells us “Clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ.” There is nothing weak about Him! He is pure, unadulterated power resting on our very shoulders. We are so much stronger than we give ourselves credit for. You have divine power. In your gravest weakness, His strength is perfected. Start taking a good look at what you’re wearing each day. Ask God to clothe you with His strength.
…and dignity. The Bible doesn’t say a woman of valor is clothed with strength and masculinity. It doesn’t say she is clothed with strength and inaccessibility. It doesn’t say she is clothed with strength and not humility. It says she is clothed with strength and dignity. Pride is dignity’s counterfeit. Never lose sight of that. We don’t forfeit humility in order to get over insecurity. The same Hebrew term translated “dignity” in the passage about the woman of valor’s apparel is found in Psalms 8:3-5 "Whenever I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor."
In that verse the word is translated “honor” instead of “dignity” but it comes from the same Hebrew term and holds identical meaning. We have dignity because God Himself gave it to us when He made us. God didn’t just give dignity to us, but according to Psalm 8:5, He crowned us with it. God didn’t put this dignity in our hands. He put it on our heads. He wrapped it as a crown around our minds, just where we need it most. Our possession of dignity is not always something we feel. It’s got to be something we know. Something we claim. To possess dignity is to be worthy of respect, worthy of high esteem. You are worthy of respect. If we can fully realize what God has given us and how He sees us, what everyone else thinks of us would grow less and less significant.
Praying for strength and dignity for each of you,
Amberly
Praying for strength and dignity for each of you,
Amberly
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