You’re right on; there is no shame for our feelings - feelings are neither good nor evil in and of themselves. We all feel insecure at times; we all feel anxious at times; we all feel sinful at times. But also, we all have outer problems at times; we all struggle with hard circumstances at times. Nothing in life, whether in our outer circumstances or inner emotions, can knock us down if we rely on the power of Galatians 2:20 (Christ lives in me), Romans 6 (we died with Him and were raised with Him to walk in newness of life), and that we can do all things (not some things) through Him who gives us strength (and who is our strength). That’s the real deal - God’s power in us is the deepest, the strongest, deeper than outer circumstances, deeper than emotion. If our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts.

So it is not about what happens to us, whether circumstantially or emotionally - our choice is in what we do with those happenings. Will we choose to trust God, or not? We so often see separation, and live from it. “God is there, I am here. I must cope with life and be good mostly on my own but with God’s help.” That’s the lie. It’s Christ Himself who is the power within us. In and of ourselves, we are the zero - He is the All. “We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.” That’s the center of the Christ-ian life - Christ in the man, through the man - as the man.

First, I believe the consistency of our feeling of insecurity is directly proportional to our experience of Christ on a daily level.

If I am seeing the majesty of Jesus in my kids and in the changing of the seasons, if I acknowledge Jesus as my alarm clock goes off too early, or my toaster overcooks my Eggos, and if I remember Scripture when I’m late for work or when I lose my wallet, then I will much more quickly receive the peace of Christ when I say something stupid from the stage, or I forget all the words in front of a crowd of people. In 1 Timothy 5, the author refers to the power of our habits, and how they can work against us… but they can also work for us.

And finally, everyone feels insecure. We all struggle to remember our value. Even as we praise God for the new life we’ve been given, we can hardly believe it enough to experience Him outside of Sunday mornings. However, we ought not to feel ashamed for feeling insecure (great example, Steve, of Peter walking on water). The Gospel is Christ’s merciful arm stretching out to catch us. I love that verse in 1 Peter 5 that says “cast your anxieties on him(Christ)” because it assumes that we will have anxieties. In The Comforter, and to a certain degree, in one another, we have been given the Spirit of Christ to run to, and find rest (and security) amid our troubles.

I think many times we place our insecurities out there as an artist (or pastor) because it can help people identify with us. But there has to be a balance. And really, as a pastor, the last thing they need is simply a speaker to identify with - what they really need is someone to give them truth, not worry about reception.

Thanks for your well-stated article. In reading it and the comments that follow it, a few things come to mind.

It’s important to remember that the only labor we are to engage in is the labor of faith. It is a struggle at times. But we can’t mistake and think that having faith means making ourselves feel differently. The labor of faith is simply agreement with God. How does that play out?

It means this:

If I feel anxious, I choose to believe God is sovereign and works “all things after the counsel of His own will.” Choosing to believe this doesn’t mean I try to make my anxious feelings go away; it means quite simply that I take my focus off of how I feel and put my mind on how in control God is, and how He “means evil for good” and “works all things together for good to them that love” Him.

If I feel insecure around people, if I feel “less-than,” it’s crucial for me to agree with God that I am a cleansed, Christ-indwelt, powerful son of God, a king, holy, blameless before God, and that I am an asset to His Kingdom, not a liability. I may not feel this choice, but that’s what the Word says. So I choose to rely on that Fact.

This faith-attitude, this taking-God-at-His-Word kind of action, is the very crux and bottom line of the Christian life. It puts God in gear in our lives, because God can’t resist that kind of faith. That’s the kind of man or woman He is looking for - He’s not looking for us to try to “be like Jesus” and try to study our Bible and try to go to church and try to be good; He’s looking for people who will choose to trust Him in spite of all contrary sense evidence. “Blessed are they which have not seen, and yet believe.” That’s the bottom line.

I used to be insecure. I used to be a mess. I can choose to enter back into that mess even now, if I trust in my own human ways of getting acceptance, approval, self-worth, etc. But I’ve been encoded, renewed, reprogrammed, transformed in the past fifteen years by the God who has captured my attention.

The result is recently my wife was talking to a musician I know and he said, “Ron is comfortable inside his own skin.” And that’s the fact - because I know myself, I know my zero-ness to God’s everything, and I realize I don’t have to “be Something 4 God,” I am comfortable in my own skin. I recognize my own total weakness and inability to live the Christian life. Now, all I have to do is trust Him to live through me, as me. Sometimes the Devil yanks on me, and I stumble over that very obvious truth and try to do something in my own steam, in my own name, by my own power. And BAM! - suddenly I’m living again temporarily in Romans 7, the death-agony of the human self thinking it can choose to be good apart from God within it being its Source and Ground of being.

As believers, we do need one another. I was a lone-wolf Christian for years, and my growth was slower than it is now. I’m part of a fellowship group now on Wednesday nights, in a church which preaches the awesome, life-changing power of Christ’s indwelling Spirit, and my growth is moving along faster now (and really, growth just means coming to the recognition that “I can do nothing of myself; it is Christ in me who does the works,” just as Jesus said of Father.

Insecurity is a lie. It is a lie specifically engineered for each person, by the Devil, to keep us from influencing others for Christ’s Kingdom. Satan embedded that lie in us as children, widened and broadened it, and now uses it as a place to hook us, to hold us back from the full expression of who we are as sons and daughters of the living God.

But we can choose to trust God, to not put up with it anymore. There are eternal lives at stake in this age-old War; the costs are too high to remain insecure, to let the Devil shut us up, to hide out in our comfort, our fears, our insecurities. “If our hearts condemn us, God is greater than our hearts.”

In talking about “Good Grief”, i.e. “godly sorrow” that leads to repentence, the author makes this comment “the Church must point to the mystery of God and say with Paul that as deep as human misery is, it is indeed not to be compared to the final triumph of the love of God.”

Insecurity is misery, deep misery for some. So, it is important for us to remind each other who we are in Christ and that we are completey His. As I was reminded at church last year, “Christians leak”, which is why the weekly filling corporately on the Sabbath and daily filling of the Spirit persoanlly is vital for our overall health as individuals and as a community.

The second thought I had here was a line from a message I heard a while back. The preacher said “security isn’t the absence of danger, but the presence of God.” That pretty much sums this topic up for me. When I’m inscecure, I forget that I “dwell in the shadow of the Most High” and have to be reminded that while “Aslan isn’t safe, He is good.”

Thanks for the reminder.

This is one of the best statments on achievement that I have ever heard.

Is it so hard to believe Jesus’ words “Fear not little flock, for it is the Father’s good will to give you the kingdom.” I’m in med-school and just had my first round of tests for the semester. And even though I know that it was God who told me to be a doctor. I know that He is the one who got me into school. And I know that his Word says that he is faithful to finish that good work that he has begun. But even as I sit here fully aware of those things and type, I still wonder about my Neurobiology grade. I mean, that stuff is just hard. It goes into my head and feels like a big bowl of spaghetti. And I let the spaghetti feeling outweigh the confidence that I have in Christ. Not always. Its a battle. Sometimes I feel rock-solid trust in Christ. But it is a battle.

I hear you loud and clear Mr Goodgame. We have to struggle against this sinful tendency not to trust. We have to struggle against it. And we cant just do it on our own. We have to build each other up, edify the Body. After all, if we were on our own, we should feel insecure. But we have a Savior, we have a Victor, and we are more than conquerors through him.

But sometimes I feel like Charlie Brown…

“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”

Sometimes I think I’d rather clash swords with the Hittites than face down another one of Dr Mower’s neuro exams.

Thanks Mr Goodgame.