A Thirty Day Devotional adapted from the NEW book: Identity: The Distinctiveness of You – Day 1

I am not condemned; I have everlasting life. John 5:24

I am free from my past. Philippians 3:13

The presence of insecurity in our lives fights with the human need of identity.  

What are some of your insecurities?  What triggers insecure feelings in you?  Write them down or at the least make a mental list. 

Once you do this you might notice many of our insecurities are fear-based, but most tend to connect to some life experience from our past.  From those life experiences we arrive at a decision to fear, be anxious or feel inadequate and our security level suffers.  Insecurities focus on what we feel we cannot do or on becoming anxious about what we might do in the future.

You are not alone in your insecurities; we all have them.  Comedian Ray Romano once said, “It’s my insecurity that makes me want to be a comic, that makes me need the audience.”  And famous Hollywood actor Ben Affleck has been quoted as saying, “I’m always described as ‘cocksure’ or ‘with a swagger,’ and that bears no resemblance to who I feel like inside.  I feel plagued by insecurity.”

In today’s culture we are faced with an abundant supply of self-worship opportunities.  A key to identify this is to look at how many decisions are being based on feelings rather than factual truth and information.  For example, to some people it is more important how they feel about a certain political candidate than what that candidate actually stands for.  How we feel about math class and the teacher can trump what grades we are receiving or how hard we are working.  

The idol of self is to be more preoccupied with your image, your own self-concerns, your needs of affirmation and attention from others.  It is an inordinate preoccupation with yourself, your feelings, your thoughts and your opinions.  In the book my wife and I co-authored, Staying Together, Marriage: A Lifetime Affair we wrote concerning the idol of self, “When our identity becomes intertwined with our insecurity, we can become steeped in self-adoration.” 

Each of us long for security, but gravitate to the stuff of earth—the things we can touch and see.  Joyce Myers said concerning insecure persons, “…[They] derive their sense of worth and value from the acceptance of others rather than from who they are…, becoming approval addicts, always needing the approval of others to be happy and secure.”

The gospel of self in looking for comfort for one’s soul and purpose for one’s life will all too often end in self-hate, self-destructive behavior, loneliness, anger and a slow death of one’s emotional and spiritual being.  It is mentally fatiguing needing to think ahead of what others might be thinking or how others might be reacting to you.  It is wearing to one’s physical being and exhaustion can set in, eventually leading to a “who cares anyway” attitude.  Insecurity will allow the enemy of our souls to take us where we do not desire to go.

Proverbs rightly records, “The fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts the Lord is kept safe.”  (Proverbs 29:25)

Insecurity is self-condemning, but in knowing who you are in Christ, you are not condemned, rather free from your past.  You have already inherited eternal life.

Question for reflection: 

As you discover some of your insecurities, how can you relate them to this statement: “Insecurities focus on what we feel we cannot do or on becoming anxious about what we might do in the future”?

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