Insecurity

Insecurity is rampant.  There’s no way around it.  And I am not immune.

While doing a book study on “So Long, Insecurity” by Beth Moore with some awesome ladies, I’ve realized how crippling and how pervasive my insecurity really is.  Before starting, I honestly didn’t think it was a problem for me.  Page after page of reading proved wrong. 

It’s like a knife is cutting into my heart and head to shine a light on the grossness.  Thankfully, God is the surgeon and is lovingly carving it out.

Although not ever area of my life is polluted with insecurity (praise God!), the book has helped me pinpoint certain areas where it is and then provided practical and Biblical ways to beat it.  The chapter I just finished included a lot of stories that women had written to Beth.  Some of the stories I had never experienced or even thought of as having roots in insecurity, some were warnings to be heeded, and some could have been penned by yours truly.

A few of the story headlines and words from Beth or from the stories that jumped out at me were the following:

“We gnaw on a relationship like a dog on a bone.  We worry a detail half to death out of insecurity, get no response, and then overcommunicate…”

“I tried my best to get it all under my control, to be in charge and make things just the way I wanted them to be.  Do you know how tiring that is?”

“Insecurity can veil our vision and blind us to how blessed we are.”

“Insecurity can talk us into doing things we don’t even want to do.”

“Not only can insecurity talk us into disastrous relationships, it can talk us out of great ones.”

“Incidentally, research shows that one mark of insecurity is the urge to lie when someone asks us if we know someone we don’t, remember something we can’t, or have ever heard of something we haven’t.”

“Insecurity makes us settle.”

“But the greatest regret I have is that insecurity has kept me from so many things.  It has kept me from instigating friendships that I desperately needed, kept me from pursuing career goals that I know God planted in my heart, and kept me from trying new things that would have been good for me.”

Thinking back to some of the things I’ve done makes me cringe and shake my head with embarrassment.  Overcommunicating in relationships…  Doing things I didn’t really want to do…  Trying to control people or situations…  Acting like I know what the heck someone is talking about…  

I’ve asked for forgiveness and for specific insecurities to not have their way.  Then, when specific people come to mind, like today, I pray for them as well – that they would be unscathed by my stupidity that was rooted in insecurity and that God would use our relationship, as ugly as it may have been at times, to be for their/our good.  A sweet little gift unbeknownst to one such person was the “liking” of a FB status, which made me think that God was already at work. 

Fighting insecurity is a hard battle, but it is beatable.

At the end of the chapter, Beth gives a good word:

“God Himself formed human emotions.  He knows how easily the heart can be broken.  The mind can be marred.  He knows life hurts… because people hurt… and then hurt people.  He also knows the resilience with which He made us and the innate capacity within each one of us to be restored.  Remade.  He knows we are capable of loving even when we feel unloved because He loves us enough to cover those who don’t.  He knows we are not nearly as fragile as we think we are, but will act like who we believe ourselves to be.  He knows we have the capacity to be astoundingly extraordinary, and not just in spite of where we’ve been, but because of it.  God knows we’re insecure.  But we do not need to be.  He has enough security for both of us, and for those of us who call Christ Savior, He slipped His own secure Spirit within our simple jars of clay.”