Shattering the Lies of Insecurity

I sobbed all the way to the first small group I ever went to.  Scared, young, fearing I was too un-spiritual.  Worried of being asked to read the Bible.  Petrified of what I might look like to others.

Would I come across weird, or lost, or stupid?

But most of all I was horrified of small talk, petrified of those awkward moments when you stand and stare at someone, and don’t know what to say.

I was young, had small children, and had been married after pregnancy. I thought everyone could see my scars, the world would know my doubts in people, my insecurities with God, the inadequacy I felt when I looked in the mirror.

But truth is, the reflection in mirrors can lie to us. We are not what our hazy notions think we are. Scripture tells us we simply see dimly, only God sees fully and predestines us to something…even before our birth.

I open my Word this morning.  On the floor of my imperfections, meet with Him…like I have done for years now.

It is there I come unconditionally, fully loved, completely accepted; asking Him who I am, asking Him how I can show my love, confessing I am willing to surrender my life, over and over again.

It is there in the secret place, the blood of His death swallows up all I think I am. It is there I lay low, reflecting His image in my lack, throwing my notions into the trash, then standing reflecting His glory.

It is there, in scripture, He reminds me, He has given us the ability to love our enemies.  He has not called the equipped but gives good gifts to His children that are irrevocable.

And to think, my teenage detour didn’t turn away my God.  To think that when I have doubted, or worried, or let my emotions get the best of who I am….He covers us in grace, offers us His love that demolishes all of the fiery darts of the enemy.

And we can’t go on looking into mirrors with our physical eyes. We can’t go on trusting our carnal selves to evaluate and determine who we are in Christ.  We must look with spiritual eyes, ask our Maker, petition our Savior, bow low in our weakness, standing afterwards only in His promises….or insecurities will never leave.

Jesus challenges His people to transform their thinking, live by a new idea and attitude, not conforming to this world so He can reveal what is good and acceptable and the perfect will of God.

He warns all of us to not estimate or think more highly than we should, exaggerateting the opinions of our strengths, or looks, or aptitudes….but to rate ourselves soberly, living accordingly to the degree of faith He has given each of us.

But yet, how often do we mask what we are not with false representations of who we pretend to be?

How many see weakness and insecurity in the mirror, the start using the world’s method of trying to convince ourselves that we are more than what we should be…apart from who He has created?

Doesn’t God call us low, humbly….then to rise..not in and of ourselves, but in His identity; His callings, His purposes, His faith, and by the measure of Grace He has dispensed to each of us?

And when we know our worth, the gifts God has given each of us…we can live bold and fearless, basking in His grace and goodness….not pretending we are something we are not, and not despising a mirror that reflects faults, inadequacies, and imperfections.

When we can live life for His purposes, reflecting Him most, He gets all the glory.

I made it through our very first small group.  My nerves were shattered after weighing myself by my faults and weaknesses.

But now, almost two decades later, my husband and I have stepped into my greatest fear, opening our own home, doing small groups now for the past five years.

And isn’t it funny how the thing we fear most can often be our calling?  The place we are avoiding or the people He has lead us to can be the very place He will use….if we will step out in faith and walk in obedience instead of insecurity?

Yet, I can get that the mirror lies to us.  I can get that we hide, and cower, and never want to come out of our four walls because of the echos and taunting of our own weaknesses….

But friends, we are not our own. We are not measured by earthly standards or shadows.  Each of us are simply reflections of The One who holds us in the palm of His hand, The One who made us in His image, The One who breathed life and filled us with His Spirit so that we might shatter our mirrors, once and for good.

Isn’t He the one and only, true declarer of who we are?

So how ’bout it, friends?  What if we rid ourselves from “can’t”, the pride and selfishness that so easily mask our insecurity? What if we shattered our mirrors of doubt and insecurity and ran forward in faith being all He has made us to be?

**  ACTION STEP:  If you have lies, or a past, or insecurities rising in your life at this second…will you stop resisting them, and simply get on your knees and confess them to God?  Will you spend time in repentance, without excuses?  Stopping all striving, so that you can rise and live victorious, filled with faith and His Spirit, ready to leave the shattered image this world keeps slipping in front of your face? Will you join me in realizing God often uses the broken and the weakest among us?  

He has called us and He will equip us when we stop looking into our mirrors of insecurity and charge forward in the power of His great name!

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