Defending Against Insecurity

This week, we've been looking at ways lifestyle worship influences our day-to-day emotional lives. Since we all realize that anxiety is a very present part of life, and that it is also a very undesirable part of life, we have looked at God's Word for counsel in this matter. We are doing this because we know that God is the God of peace and not the god of anxiety. The spirit of anxiety wars against the spirit of worship. For that reason, we are examining several natural causes of anxiety and then we're considering godly principles that can help us live lives that are not driven by anxiety, but instead are guided by worship.

Today, let's consider another key factor in a person's proneness to become an anxious person. One of Satan's prime ploys for luring us into the trap of negative anxiety is a disheartening sense of personal insecurity. The less secure we feel, the more likely we are to become stressfully anxious.

Unsure of ourselves, we try to bolster our ego with "I'm the best" or "I'm worth it" declarations. Unsure of how others see us, we make verbal or visual statements that shout, "Look how well I'm doing" and "See how important I am."

It feels too blatant to actually make such statements outright, so we often communicate them through indirect references to people we know, where we go, or what we've accomplished. Other times we make these statements without a word, by accumulating status symbols for people to notice.

All this is done in the desperate and pathetic hope that others will be impressed with us. It's sad when we think that our personal value hinges on our association with important people, important events or exotic travels.

The hidden motive driving many of us to the top of our various endeavors is insecurity. It's the craving to be noticed and accepted. It's the yearning for respect (that we perhaps do not have for ourselves). In fact, this relationship between anxiety and achievement has been the subject of systematic research. As you might expect, the results of those studies show a significant link between a person's anxiety and that person's achievement.

God has a different plan for achievement. His plan calls for us to be different from this world's ways. He wants us to let His Holy Spirit renew our minds each day, transforming our minds and hearts into conformity with the way He originally designed us. We were designed for worship, not for anxiety. To achieve in God's eyes is different than achieving in man's eyes. Hence, the goals of a Spirit-renewed mind differ from those of a person who doesn't love God, and the paths of a Spirit-renewed mind differ from those of a person who doesn't love God. When we love God, we belong to a different culture, with different values and different goals. Romans 12, verses 1-2 say it this way:

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. 2And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

Let me close with a brief, true story that bears repeating in this context. In the early 20th century, an immigrant family left Norway and sailed across the ocean to America. Soon after they arrived in Boston, they had another baby. Nicknamed "Buster," the addition of this child to the family threatened to bust them financially.

Buster's early years could have given him good reason to feel insecure. While he was still a child, his father was killed in a construction accident. At about the same time, his mother died, too. She was the victim of a serious illness.

Thus, by the age of nine, Buster was an orphan. Tossed from one older sibling to another-none of whom had any great desire to take him in-he grew up with no real home and no real acceptance. He had every reason to feel alone and insecure.

His older brother and sisters did not particularly hide their reluctance to have him in their homes. One Christmas season, he was living with an older sister, who had a son, Charles, about the same age as Buster. As Christmas approached, Buster and Charles each found a Christmas stocking hung for them over the fireplace. Both stockings were filled with treats for the boys, but they couldn't look inside to see what was there until Christmas day. When Christmas finally arrived, they eagerly took down their stockings and looked inside.

For Charles, there were candies, sweet bread and other goodies for him to enjoy. For Buster, there were only chunks of black charcoal. In Scandinavian culture, that charcoal shouted the message, "You're bad. We don't want you!"

What kind of adult emerges from that kind of childhood? You'd expect a rather insecure and anxious man. Instead, Buster became a successful businessman, a devoted husband and a loving father. In fact, he was my father.

Long before, he had forgiven his brother and sisters. In stark contrast to his early years, I have fond memories of many Christmas seasons spent with those relatives.

My dad was a gifted singer. One of his favorite songs explains the cause of this counter-cultural behavior and his sense of security. That song, drawn from Ephesians chapter one, goes like this:

In the Beloved, accepted am I;
Risen, ascended and seated on high;
Saved from all sin through His infinite grace;
With the redeemed ones, accorded a place.
In the Beloved, God's marvelous grace
Calls me to dwell in this wonderful place.
God sees my Savior, and then He sees me,
In the Beloved, accepted and free.

My father, who had good reason to feel very insecure, was instead very assured. He was nourished in the knowledge that he was fully accepted by Christ, his Beloved. This acceptance by God gave him freedom to live, freedom to forgive and freedom to serve his Beloved.

If you were to visit his humble grave today, you would see a small stone marker. Carved on that marker, you would discover the four-word message trumpeted in my father's life: "Accepted in the Beloved." So, my Christian friend, are you.

© 2007 John Garmo. If you would be interested in using this article, please contact us at Info@MissionToChildren.org.