We’ve all felt insecure at various times in life. Some struggle with these feelings more than others, and a few find themselves paralyzed by comparison. I was not born with a natural insecurity. Sure, I’ve had plenty of moments through my years dancing on this rock, but by and large I struggle with arrogance more.
Humility is an important trait to develop in life and it serves us best by keeping us grounded in reality.
Humility is not self-loathing; it is the sober ability to accurately assess who you are. All the flaws, scars, failures, successes, gifts, positive and negative attributes that make up you. Knowing what you’re good at, what needs work, and what you need to outsource, is vital. It also takes significant time to come to the place of owning enough maturity to accurately do the inventory.
The largest obstacle that stands in the way of such honesty is our broken nature that is bent toward self. Theologians call this our sin nature, or fallen nature. Unfortunately it distorts reality, usually in one of two ways. Either we overly hate ourselves, our weaknesses, and our failures, or we are oblivious (intentional or not) and over-estimate ourselves, claiming moral superiority in most things. Most of us oscillate between the two extremes during our lives, sometimes in a moment by moment frequency.
Enter God.
When humans were created we were made in the image of God, loaded with blessings and responsibilities, and it was good—until it wasn’t. Everything God did was perfect or He would not be God. When the curse of sin came so did all of our problems and insecurities. Weare so complex mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually it is impossible to figure everything out. That part we know—that we just don’t know, can’t know, even though we are the crown of God’s creation, we cannot know everything and that can be so frustrating. We don’t appreciate mystery in our present age. So we fake it until we make it and that does nothing more than feed our insecurity.
That is why Jesus is such an encouragement to me. I figure he is the humblest person to ever walk the earth, hands down. He would win the "most humble" person of the year award every year and he could vote for himself in all honesty and truth. Jesus knew who he was. God in the flesh sent to save us. He humbled himself and became a man. He was grounded in reality. He knew us because he was one of us. He loved us because he knew we needed him, so he showed up to help, to save.
When insecure feelings rise up, learning to lean into who God says we are is key. We try to reason the feelings away, or numb them into oblivion, and it never works. We are easily deceived and our enemy is stronger than we are on our own. All of these things stir up insecurities and they can overwhelm us.
What God says istruth, like bedrock that we can build the largest sky-scrapers on.Who does God say that you are? Build your life on that promise andwatch what happens, how he shows up. We all need a God who knows uscompletely and chooses to care about us in exorbitant ways. Groundedin the truth of how God actually sees you and me, will change us fromthe inside out. Even as we grieve life’s innumerable losses. Maybeespecially then.
The truth? God loves you, my friend. He holds you in high esteem. You are his highly valued treasure. He is not disappointed with you or your your weaknesses. It’s time to come home to the one who loves you more than you could ever imagine.
