February 25, 2013

• Rising Above Insecurity

  Have you ever noticed that Satan works in waves. Waves of targeted attack.

  Like fear: suddenly you’re fearful and anxious about everything: the safety of your children, the state of the government, whether you locked your front door or not, if your house will catch on fire during the night, if your car will break down, or if your husband will lose his job.

  Or low self-esteem: You wake up and you feel fat, your notice every break-out scar, your hair seems extra frizzy, and you wonder why everyone else just looks so put together and cute while you always seem to look frumpy. This can go on for days….or weeks….

  Or materialism: you suddenly want everything. New clothes, new shoes, new purse, and new throw pillows for the couch. Nothing you have is attractive to you anymore.

  Or insecurity: when you get your feelings hurt about everything, when you get re-offended from something from the past, when you realize someone de-friended you on Facebook, and when you text or email someone more than once with no response. It’s like a snowball getting bigger and bigger and bigger.

  I just went through a short wave of insecurity last week. But as I sat through a wonderful sermon yesterday, God set me free from the wave. Just like He does with every wave. All it takes is the TRUTH and sometimes some waiting.

  Here are some thoughts that helped me.

  1. God’s plan for me is real.

  Oswald Chambers said “God’s call is for you to be His loyal friend, for whatever purpose He has for your life.”

  We’ve been reading the Narnia series, and the character Aslan has been so powerful to me in giving me a visual of God’s power mixed with love for me. When I really grasp how powerful God is, and meditate on His desire to know me and to use me, I can let go of this insatiable need to be everyone’s favorite person.

  2. God puts people in our lives for a purpose, but that purpose doesn’t always feel good.

  Favor comes from the Lord. And favor doesn’t always mean what we want it to mean. If you have a person in your life that always seems to see your downfalls, always seems to be correcting you – it’s not natural to think of it as favor. But God can use it, just as He can use those who seem to just see our strengths and are huge encouragements in our lives. I am trying to widen my view on what favor is.

  3. Good people aren’t always nice to us, that doesn’t make them un-good.

  There are a whole bunch of people in the universe. Just as I can’t be a close friend to everyone, everyone can’t be a close friend to me. If someone doesn’t make me feel valued and important, that doesn’t give me a right to be offended. Chances are high that, that person IS making SOMEONE feel valued and important. He/She is a GOOD person. God just hasn’t given them a heart to be MY good person. I thank God for the many people He has put in my life to be my good people. Of all of the people in the universe they could be good to, I was one of the ones they chose.

  4. I am not the center of the universe.
  Last night I was talking to the Lord about all of this, thanking Him for bringing me through the wave, and asking Him if there was anything else I needed to learn. And He spoke to my heart something like this:
  “You know how sometimes you want me to convict someone for not being nice to you? Don’t you think I have a LOT that I need to speak about to each person – there’s almost as much I need to deal with in them as I need to deal with in you! Do you really think at the top of my list would be – ‘Hey you weren’t as nice to Christina Davis as you could have been.’ No! That is NOT on the top of my list! I can take care of your hurt feelings. Now let me do my work in my way on other people without your input. Let me heal your hurt feeling. Desire me for yourself, more than you desire justice for yourself.”

  I woke up this morning with the thought of, “I wonder what wave Satan is going to force at me this week?” And I feel God draw near and change my question to, “I wonder what victory God is going to accomplish this week?”

  Want to ask that question with me?

  • 9:39 am
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