To read highlights from chapter 2, click HERE.
all words in italics – quoting Beth Moore, So Long Insecurity
If you’re coming to the same conclusion I did — realizing you have a sizable issue with insecurity — take heart! We are in fine company….
…Threat. That single word captures one of the most powerful drivers of insecurity. More often than not, if we’re willing to make the connection, we can trace feelings of insecurity to a perceived threat, especially when it comes in a sudden rush.
—What are we afraid of?
—Who are we afraid of?
—What are we afraid of losing?
—Why are we afraid of being displaced?
Studies have long since proven that much of what we fear is fueled by our imaginations, and in fact, most of what we fear never happens. However, as we seek healing for our insecurity, it does us absolutely no good to work from the premise that we have nothing to be insecure about. Sometimes our fears are founded. Sometimes a valid threat really does arise. What happens then? Not long ago a woman wrote me a letter describing how her best friend systematically seduced her husband. That, girlfriend, is a threat. My suggestion is this: even when fears are founded and threats are real and we are about to be swept away in a tidal wave of well-earned insecurity, there is a divine power, wisdom, and clarity of thought to be found. The person who responds with strength instead of hysteria at a time like that may be a stranger to you right now, but finding that person is precisely what we are doing here……if you can’t find resolution when faced with a persistent threat, bad feelings can quickly turn into bad behavior, and sombody’s going to get mistreated…..
….jealously is always the result of a perceived threat. And a threat always places a 911 call to insecurity.
Insecurity lives in a constant terror of loss. Insecure people are always afraid that something or somebody is going to be taken from them. Saul feared the loss of power and admiration, and he quickly ascertained that David would be the one to try to take them from him. He didn’t quite get that God alone was in charge of his destiny and the only one who could jar that crown off his head….
I just want to whisper something to you in the safety of this environment while no one else is listening: by the time you wish something bad would happen to the person who makes you feel insecure, you need urgent care. Sometimes we need an outside voice to say, “You’re spinning out of control here. Let somebody help you reel that thing in.”
Human flesh and blood have no weakness so strong that God’s strength is made weak.
“May the Lord answer you when you are in trouble; may the God of Jacob make you secure!”
PSALM 20:1
