Uncertainty

Insecurity looks different for everyone. For some, it's insecurity in a job and what a boss thinks of them. For others, it is how you look physically. Are you pretty enough or thin enough? Some experience insecurity in ministry, feeling ill-equipped. Others feel inadequate in their intelligence. I could create a never ending list of insecurities. It is something that has touched every persons life one way or another.

So what is the definition of insecurity? It is the uncertainty or anxiety about oneself; lack of confidence. For me personally, the amount of times I've looked in a mirror and felt disappointment and dissatisfaction with the reflection is more times than I can count. The moment I had realized how much of an issue it truly was began on a time I served far from home for a month. It was with a bunch of people I hadn't known prior, and we were all coming to serve for a month at a summer camp.

The longer I was there, the more this insecurity began surfacing. I'd compare my body to the girls I'd spent a month with. I'd see and find flaws in it all the time. It was so damaging that one night I secluded myself to the back corners of a dining hall while sweeping, cleaning tables, etc. I had become quiet, I didn't make eye contact with people in fear of them wanting to converse with me. Because if they talked to me, then they'd have to look at me. And I was so ashamed of how I looked that I couldn't bear it. It was so opposite of who I normally was.

This was the night I began to see more clearly how much of a grip insecurity had over my brain.

A lot of us feel this. Maybe not with how we view our physical being, but man. We sure shrink down in the fear of not being good enough. We think, "I'm too bossy" or "People tell me I'm too sensitive." We hear echos of, "But I need the approval of (insert name here) to be pleased with myself." Heck, I get this. My natural tendency is to be a people-pleaser.

Some of us cringe because we can see parts of ourselves that fit into these so-called identities. And some of us ask the question, but what if these things I continue to think are actually true?

I don't think changing the way we view ourselves is something that can be done on our own. The more I began to process through my insecurity, looking back now, it wasn't that I began to believe the lies less. It was that I believed in who Jesus was and what He said more.

Then the Lord said, “I have seen how cruelly my people are being treated in Egypt; I have heard them cry out to be rescued from their slave drivers. I know all about their sufferings, and so I have come down to rescue them from the Egyptians and to bring them out of Egypt to a spacious land, one which is rich and fertile and in which the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites now live. I have indeed heard the cry of my people, and I see how the Egyptians are oppressing them. Now I am sending you to the king of Egypt so that you can lead my people out of his country.”

But Moses said to God, “I am nobody. How can I go to the king and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”

God answered, “I will be with you, and when you bring the people out of Egypt, you will worship me on this mountain. That will be the proof that I have sent you.”

But Moses replied, “When I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors sent me to you,’ they will ask me, ‘What is his name?’ So what can I tell them?”

God said, “I am who I am. You must tell them: ‘The one who is called I Am has sent me to you.’

Tell the Israelites that I, the Lord, the God of their ancestors, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, have sent you to them. This is my name forever; this is what all future generations are to call me.

Exodus 3:7-14

One of my favorite things about this passage of scripture is the way God addresses Moses's insecurity. He doesn't say,"Moses, no! You're so great at what I'm calling you to do." As you read throughout Exodus, you see that the more Moses knows the Lord's character, the more confident he becomes in leading the Israelites. I think this is a direct picture of what growing in our insecurities can look like.

In an art class I took, the professor was explaining to us the different standards of beauty throughout multiple centuries. I remember listening to her explain that at one time, women shaved and plucked their foreheads to have larger ones. These were women's standard at that time. I thought, what the heck that's crazy.

For some reason in that moment though, it clicked; we have no idea what beauty truly is.

For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.

Psalm 139:13-14

The Lord loves to remind us of who we are in the mirrored reflection of Him instead of ourselves. The standards of society are constantly changing. But as we know God's character and how He delights in what he's created, I think our hearts become more apt to his way of thinking. Growing in our insecurity comes from believing that God knows what he's talking about when he says we're fearfully and wonderfully made.

Even so, our expectations over ourselves are not at all what God asks of us. Isn't that crazy to think about? In fact, this is what God asks of us:

“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment.

Matthew 22:36-38

Not only does he ease the pressures off of us in looking a certain way for the world, but He calls us to live out who we are in our love for Him. So all of those ticks that you hate and inescapable short-tempers, they don't hold a candle to what God really desires from us. Our love and our heart.

Insecurity is not something to be suppressed by any means. But as you move through processing it, Jesus's voice will become a little bit louder than your own. You'll start to love Him more today than you did the day before.

Something to pray as the days proceed:

Lord,

Thank you for the heart that you've given me. Thank you for this body that holds a soul most valuable to you. So valuable that you sent your one and only son to die for it. Teach me to lean more into what YOU say about me, and less into what I believe of myself. Reveal that these expectations are mere results of a broken world. That what you say of who I am trumps what the world deems as beautiful. Teach me to appreciate my own gifts as much as I envy others. Whether I am the loud voice or the quiet heart in a room, allow me to see the value in both to the body you are creating for Kingdom Glory.

With all that I do and with all that I am allow me to bring heaven to earth. To show more of who You are this week and for the rest of my life, Jesus.

Amen