I’ve been dwelling a lot on the topic of insecurity lately. Lots of discussion, prayer, and reading has taken place in order to combat this often overlooked, yet so crippling dysfunction found in too many of us. There is a sort of stigma overshadowing the idea of insecurity; if we bring it to light, then we are ungrateful, vain, and/or just fishing for compliments. This causes many people to hide this problem instead of dealing with it in a more positive way. We see insecurity in ourselves and others and we allow it to stay there because it's "okay" and it's often not directly harming anyone. So many of us allow insecurity to rot within us because we do not consider it "as much" of a sin as things like murder, alcoholism, or prostitution.
But insecurity is as real of a problem as anything else, and it needs to be talked about and dealt with. Ephesians 5:11 says, “Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.” Someone I know shed a lot of new wisdom on this to me recently, and for that I am thankful. I know now that if we do not expose our fruitless deeds of darkness to one another as a body of Christ, then how are we to work through them and overcome them? As she put it, we need to "expose them and bring them to life so that they can be lain and killed at the foot of the cross whenever they arise. Otherwise they remain within ourselves."
One of the purposes of the body of Christ is to better one another and to help one another overcome sin. Hebrews 3:13 is a perfect example of this, as it reads "but exhort one another every day, as long as it is called 'today,' that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin."
Insecurity is sin, and it is deceitful. It is deceitful in the way it hides within you and grows until it becomes all-consuming. Once you allow it to enter and affect one area of your life, it will spread to multiple areas and even bleeds into the lives of other people around you. It negatively affects the way you view yourself, and the way you interact with others.
Insecurity is undoubtedly a sin; all sin is enough to keep you from God, so it should not be placed on a lower hierarchical level as it usually is. Insecurity says "God, I do not believe you," and "God, You are not enough for me." Realizing that this is the definition of blasphemy and of a lack of faith in God makes it a lot more serious. We need to be aware that insecurity is not okay, so that way we can eradicate it from our lives.
This is not to say that we should be proud, conceited or self-absorbed instead. Rather, insecurity ought to be destroyed and then rebuilt into humble confidence. Instead of saying "I hate this about myself," or "there's no way he/she/they would want me around," we should be able to say "I love that God gave me this, and I don't need to flaunt it," or "I know that I am fearfully and wonderfully made, and I am content in that."
Insecurity comes from allowing ourselves to be reassured by our image, our talents, the people we associate ourselves with or other worldly things. Those things are all in vain, and any reassurance that comes from this world is fleeting and does not last.
Humble confidence comes when we make God our only place that we go to for true reassurance. Our God is an unchanging Rock, and only in Him will our confidence cease to waver. Psalm 16:8 is a verse I go to when I am prone to wander in my insecurities, and it goes like this: "I keep my eyes always on the LORD. With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken."
