Insecurities

It is pretty easy to pick out insecurities in other people isn’t it? I mean you can see it sometimes like a huge flag waving over them, “notice me! Pay attention to me!!” Then there is another section that tries to hide behind others or activities practically shouting, “do not look at me! Ignore me, please do not see me!”

Honestly, we ALL have insecurities. No matter how we deal with them, or don’t, we all have things in our lives that make us think, say or feel, “I am not good enough. I do not measure up."

Everyone has something they are not sure about. Ask women “what would you like to change about yourself if you could?” Answers from my weight, my nose, my eyebrows and my thighs, would and could be possible answers.

Ask guys, it would be more purpose related, my job, be a better father, grow a unibrow (lol sorry that last one was for Brian, he always threatened to grow one just to annoy me).

Our insecurities basically run our life because they are attached to our feelings and our experiences. These insecurities and maybe we could call them “little cling ons” are like that kind of grass you walk through and all those sticky burrs attach to your pant legs. Worse yet is if they also attacked your socks and sometimes your shoes as well! Stuck right there, you had no idea you were attracting them or that they were clinging on to you until you either brushed them with your hand or looked down. It is the same with our insecurities, we really do not know we have them until they are pointed out to us. They simply slide onto us and dig their little hooks in and hold on.

They do not come off easily either. If you try to brush them off, oh no, those little cling ons are like duct taped to your clothes, and sting your fingers as you attempt to dislodge them.

An insecurity acts the same way. You walk through life often oblivious to the insecurities that have made a home, burrowing into the fabric of your life. You may try to pull them off but like the cling ons they have little hooks that do not let them detach very easily.

You can think you have one of them beat only to find it resurrects itself years later.

What are some examples that we might relate to?

I am not smart enough or I am so dumb

I am not thin enough or I am so fat

I am so skinny

I am not strong enough

I am not young enough or I am so old

I am not rich enough or I am always broke

I am not pretty enough or I am so ugly

I am not healthy enough or I am always sick

I can never remember

I have no friends or I am always lonely

You get the idea right? With these type of sentences we are making judgements over ourselves.

Words are powerful, God created the world, our world with His Words. He spoke and it came to be. You speak and it comes to be, you can make judgments over yourself. There is that saying: that which you focus on will come to be.

Ouch! The truth of that often hits me in my heart, what am I focusing on? Personally I have to work at this, I can be good at cutting myself down with my words, I also can let the tapes inside my head start rolling with what other people may have said about me in the past.

Often it is a comment a family member has said, a spouse, a teacher or worse the school yard kids. I mean how is it possible we cannot find our keys from 2 hours ago and yet we remember these kids words from 20-50 years ago? Cling ons.

It takes almost nothing for those one liners to start rolling: stupid, bucky beaver, 4 eyes, geeky, so tall, so short…

But if that is all true, I could be very good at building myself up, if I change my words. Same starting phrase, “I am so ….”

Kind, smart, beautiful, handsome, rich, healthy, blessed, gifted, creative.

Did you know that God is not worried about your insecurities. He really does not see you the way you see yourself.

He created you, the outside and inside of you exactly how He wanted. As a matter of fact God does not even keep score. He does not count how many times you have sinned. He is not speaking unkind things about you, in fact He is waiting for you to see yourself the way He does. Brilliantly and creatively wonderful.

Psalm 139:13-14 “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mothers womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”

Look in the mirror and speak those words over yourself. “I am wonderfully made.”

Your identity, the who you are is not found in other people’s opinions but they love to tell you what it is, don’t they?

The who you really are is found only in Gods opinion of you and that is the only opinion that counts. It is called your “identity”.

Seriously it is not who you identify as… I talked to a mom the other day and her child was identifying as a “cat” complete with yowling and scratching. That child, as well as you, will always be a child of God. We cannot change that, it is true even if you do not believe it.

I started this blog by stating how you can sometimes pick out others insecurities, they just show up like the cling ons in the grass. So it would be safe to say, if we focused instead on who we are, whose we are, children of God, beloved and wonderfully made, filled with power, strength and a sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7) that our focus would change on our abilities, our God given strengths and purpose, not our insecurities.

What a beautiful flag to have flying over our lives: “dearly loved and blessed.”