Security in Christ - Part 1

Several months ago, we had a Ladies in Waiting event at the church and I taught on security.  Several of our girls weren't able to be there for different reasons, but the majority of them consistently read the blog.  I've decided to share my notes on security with all of you.  Its pretty long, so we'll do it in stages, but I really believe that this will help people.  Recognizing insecurity and dealing with it is one of the most important things you can do.  I struggled with insecurity for so many years that I can confidently say I recognize it for what it is, I see the results of it and I know the happiness that comes from overcoming it and be secure in who God made you to be.  You could say this is the closest I've ever come to writing an autobiography.  So much of my life story grows from the soil of insecurity.  Every fear I have faced, every disastrous relationship and idiotic decision I’ve made wormed its way out of that fertile ground.  Through the power and grace of God, I’ve dealt with so many side effects of it, but it took me years to recognize the primary source of my negative behavior and to learn that insecurity among women may be epidemic, but it is not incurable!  I also know that I cannot expect it to go away quietly.  We have to let truth scream louder to our souls than the lies that have infected us.  That’s what this is about –focusing solidly on one issue that causes countless others.  How many 15 year olds do you know who have slept with their boyfriends in a last-ditch effort to hold on to them?  He usually breaks up with her anyway and eventually her entire high school knows what she did.  I know a woman going through her third divorce.  She wants to find a good man in the worst way, and goodness knows they’re out there.  The problem is she keeps marrying the same kind of man.  If these examples were exceptions to the rule, I wouldn’t bother with this, but you and I both know better than that.  I hear echoes of fear and desperation from women day in and day out – even if they’re doing their best to muffle the sound with their Coach bags.  Who am I kidding? Even with all my knowledge and all my efforts, I can still hear the shouts from my own heart more times than I want to admit.  Something’s wrong when we value ourselves so little.

Life is too hard and the world too mean for many of us to grasp a lofty sense of acceptance, approval, and affirmation early on and accidentally hold onto it for the rest of our lives.  Security has to be intentional because circumstances abruptly change, and setbacks happen. 

So what exactly is insecurity?  One psychologist said this

Insecurity refers to a profound sense of self-doubt, a deep feeling of uncertainty about our basic worth and our place in the world.  Insecurity is associated with chronic self-consciousness, along with a chronic lack of confidence in ourselves and anxiety about our relationships.  The insecure man or woman lives in constant fear of rejection and a deep uncertainty about whether his or her own feelings and desires are legitimate.

That was me!  Living in constant fear of rejection and deep uncertainty about  my own feelings.  Here’s the confusing catch: I was rarely called out on the issue.  I'm an organized, self-sufficient person.  I looked like I had it all together.  Let’s face it.  Many of us appear far more together than we are.  This means we need to keep an open mind to what an insecure woman looks like.  Don’t be too hasty to let yourself off the hook just because one dimension of the portrait doesn’t look like you.  The fact that she can be a complicated mix of confidence and self-consciousness is the very reason it took me so long to identify insecurity in myself.  Now that I’ve seen it and over the years taken huge strides in getting rid of it, I can easily see that “no trial has overtaken us that is not faced by others. And God is faithful.” (1 Corinthians 10:13)  To be honest, I don’t know for sure that others are right now going through the same thing I went through.  I just have a hunch.  Making assumptions about who struggles with insecurity and who doesn’t based on what the person appears to be, suggests how little we understand about the nature of insecurity and what feeds it.  I’m hoping after we've gone through all the notes on insecurity, we can rethink our typecasting and develop some real insight.  If you’ve been eaten alive with resentment toward the perky cheerleader with the blonde hair, blue eyes and dark tan, chances are unless you deal with it you will still resent her as an adult.  What you don’t realize is that she may be bloodier in the battle with insecurity than the sum total of the people who hate her.  If you knew what her heart was going through much of the time, you may even feel sorry for her.  Regardless, you would definitely save yourself the energy of wishing you could be her.  Be careful who you covet.  Be careful how you judge.  Be slow to size somebody up and think you “know all about her type.”  Nobody is unbreakable.  Only the dead don’t bleed when they’re cut.  Deep down, we all fear that we aren’t who we pretend to be and the more careful we are about what we are projecting, the more we are driven by fear.

I found an insecurity inventory preparing for this and took it myself.  Many of the statements didn’t apply to me at all, but some were so descriptive I felt like I had been caught cheating.

            Do you cry easily? Sometimes.

            Do you avoid the spotlight in social situations?  No, not really.

            Do you have a strong desire to make amends whenever you think you’ve done something wrong?  Are you kidding me?! I have a strong desire to make amends even when I haven’t done something wrong! And not solely because I want to do the godly thing either.  I battle an inordinate desire to make peace.  I dread the backlash of people far more than the backlash of God.  He’s infinitely more merciful.  Sometimes having someone upset at me is unsettling even if I’m on the right side of the conflict.  I cannot count the times God has had to tell me to stop trying to fix something that insists on staying broken!  Loss of favor and approval is excruciating to me.

            If someone gets angry at you, do you have a hard time not thinking about it? Let’s just say I try to limit myself to obsession.

            Do you sometimes feel anxious for no apparent reason?  No.

            Does it hurt your feelings when you learn someone doesn’t like you?  As Kennedy says “it breaks my whole heart.”

Did you catch the part of the definition that described insecurity as “deep uncertainty about whether his or her own feelings and desires are legitimate?”  How often do you ask yourself if what you’re feeling is even real?  Let’s look for a moment at the element of self-consciousness.  At the mention of the term, our minds start sketching images of what we think a self-conscious person looks like and we know we don’t want to be like her.  After all, we have too much pride to be her.  But the truth is she’s not nearly as easily pegged as we think.  I hate to state the obvious, but all it takes to be chronically self-conscious is to be chronically conscious of self.  It’s only an acute self-awareness and a preoccupation with yourself.  You may protect yourself with plainness and try to blend in or you may dress to perfection and stand squarely in the spotlight.  In either situation, if you are more aware of yourself than any other person in the room, whether you feel inferior to them or superior to them, it’s a sign of insecurity.  Never think for a moment that pride and self-centeredness have no role in insecurity.  We will never feel better about ourselves by becoming more consumed with ourselves.  Likewise, we will never feel better about ourselves by feeling worse about others.

This isn't how my original notes go, but so as not to leave you hanging, I'll include one way to overcome insecurity at the end of the blog each day. 

Overcoming Insecurity Tip:

Pursuing a life of purpose is one of the strongest guards against buying the superficiality that feeds insecurity.  Unless we choose to drop out of public life entirely, we are going to pass alluring storefronts, billboards, magazines and Internet ads that shout all sorts of promises they can’t keep. Unless we want to let them completely consume and corrode us, we have to know beyond a doubt that life is about something greater.  Find ways to volunteer and help others.  There are people out there dying to be loved and we have the message they need to hear.  I don’t feel nearly as guilty plunking a new jean skirt on the counter at Gap if I know in my heart that it is the furthest thing on earth from what really matters.  The Prophet Isaiah said something about this years ago:

            Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke?

 
          Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter – when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?

           Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you, and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.

          Then you will call, and the Lord will answer; you will cry for help and He will say: Here am I.  If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday.

           The Lord will guide you always; He will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame.  You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.

            Isaiah 58:6-11

Amberly