INSECURE AGAIN?
“You are really dumpster diving with this one,” my mom shrugged as we sat on the couch. “It will not work. He is not right for you, and he knows it. You can’t be serious.”
I verbally defended him, arguing his fitness for me and all the make-believe ways we would build a life together. She told me she could see I wasn’t happy, but I insisted that I was. She told me the kind of man God had for me, but I told her I already had him. I don’t know if it was stubbornness, insecurity, or fear, but I just needed us to work out.
The following day, after a few days of silence, he called. Unprompted and flowing freely, he said, “You wake up wondering how you can serve God, and I don’t. I don’t think of Him.” I sat in silence, only able to muster a curious “huh” in response. He continued to ramble on about different things, but I got stuck on those words: “I don’t think of Him.” Less than 24 hours ago, I had declared that he was the man God had for me, yet here he was, confessing that he didn’t think of God at all.
Still, I convinced myself that my flickering, extremely dim light would somehow bring him to Jesus. But it wasn’t just about that. Our approaches to life and people were worlds apart. I would jokingly say he was raised by wolves, while I was raised by bunnies—but there was truth in it. There was a joy I had found that was hidden from him. A love I freely gave, that he hoarded. A freedom I lived in, that he couldn’t grasp. We could point to upbringing, family structures, or past relationships, but the truth was simpler: I knew Jesus, and he didn’t. And even though my witness was tainted by disobedience, my morality, my worldview, and the way I lived had been reshaped by the love and knowledge of God.
We eventually broke up, and looking back I think he always wanted to, but just didn’t know how. Still, another confession he uttered, “You care for people in a way I never learned to.” and “At some point I was just using you to fix myself.” I sat in silence again, not willing to admit that I was to some degree using him too. I don’t know that I loved and pursued him because I actually saw him, I think it was just about me. If I got him to love me in all the ways I wanted and if somehow my life brought some meaning to his, then I was worthy or valuable or enough. And, that’s really all I have ever wanted, to be seen and known and enough.
“but now, thus says the lord, who created you, o jacob, and he who formed you, o israel: ‘fear not, for i have called you by your name; you are mine’.” isaiah 43:1 [niv]
I’m not sure when the shift happened for me, but I remember feeling the weight of it. Interactions stopped being simple—they became opportunities to fulfill a need, satisfy a desire, or affirm whatever belief I held about myself at the time. Everything felt more complicated. Every rejection, missed opportunity, failed relationship, or friendship became the building blocks of a world designed to discourage and hurt me. I’ve learned that the worlds we create in our minds often lie and deceive us. And because we can’t escape our own minds, we somehow come to trust them, even though they’ve been shaped by the words and actions of other broken people. Our minds can—and often do—lie to us.
I thought I had already uncovered all the ways my insecurity affected me, but the more I explore God, the more I realize He has been the one most affected by it. His love, though constantly offered, has often been rejected because I couldn’t understand why He loves me. His grace and mercy, cheapened by my efforts to earn them, were never fully received. For every blessing, there was a fear that He might take it back once He realized I wasn’t who I thought I was. And for every discipline or faith-building challenge, there was a creeping belief that I hadn’t prayed hard enough or wasn’t worthy enough, so this must be my punishment.
At the heart of all insecurity, we will always find fear—a fear of being rejected or abandoned, a fear of being exposed or ignored, or simply of not being enough. Yet, scripture teaches us that perfect love drives out fear (1 John 4:18), and it also tells us that God is love, demonstrated fully through the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. What does this mean for us? It means that overcoming insecurity isn’t possible without God. The same love we often resist is the very love that empowers us to walk in the freedom He’s promised.
“what then shall we say to these things? if God is for us, who can be against us?” romans 8:31 [niv]
Insecurity erodes the foundation of any relationship because true intimacy is impossible when we’re not fully ourselves. We avoid certain questions, bury our honest thoughts, and keep parts of ourselves hidden—all out of the fear that insecurity breeds. But here’s the truth: God isn’t just now learning about who you are, nor is He basing His love on your actions or worthiness. His love for you is unchanging, and the value He wove into you from His first thought of you is fixed.
We are the ones only now beginning to understand the depths of our own darkness—not God. The enemy deceives us into thinking that someone like us could never be loved or used by God, that we’re too far gone or too flawed for an eternal relationship with Him. When we don’t know scripture, it’s easy to fall into agreement with that lie, working ourselves to exhaustion, trying to earn His love. But that’s not the life He calls us to live, nor the understanding of His love that He wants us to have.
He knew everything about you—every doubt, every sin, every dark thought and action, every broken promise and hollow devotion—and He still sent His Son to die for you. You can’t make Him love you any more than He already does. You can’t make Him choose you any more than He already has. God is not like you or me; there was no external prompting or reason why He needed to love you. He loved you first, He took the first step toward you, and He doesn’t need any help loving you.
Let’s explore some scriptures that can affirm our position in the heart of God.
Romans 8:32-39 “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
What do we learn about God’s attitude towards us?
He declares we are worthy of sacrifice. In God’s complete show of love towards us we witness how precious we are to Him. He did not spare his perfect, blameless, sinless Son, instead He sacrificed Him so that we can live. Jesus died centuries ago. God declared His love towards us centuries ago.
He has justified us. Justified means to render (i.e. show or regard as) just or innocent:—free, be righteous. God has regarded us as just and innocent and righteous through Christ. Every sin that we allow to keep us from approaching the throne of God has been paid for already. Every sin that the enemy uses to convince us that God has walked away from us has been covered already. We can not and have not justified ourselves. We approach God through Christ and gain our justification forever.
His love for us is everlasting. God’s great love towards us was shown through Christ. It is impossible to undo the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. Furthermore, it is impossible to undo or cancel the love God has for us. We did not earn this love, we cannot cancel this love, and we cannot lose this love. Our acceptance of Christ and devotion to God dictates how we experience and understand this love.
1 John 4:9-10 “This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”
What do we learn about God’s love for us?
It has already been and is still being demonstrated. God has told us how we can know, trust, and believe He loves us. God’s love points us to Christ and Christ points us back to God. Performance is not required, neither is manipulation by good works. His love is not proven through blessings or answered prayers or you getting the things you want. His love is proven through Christ alone.
We did absolutely nothing to get it. Our love for God does not prompt Him to treat us better or love us better. The character of God is fixed. The heart God has towards His creation is unchangeable. We did nothing to get Him to love us. It isn’t because we remember to pray or spend time with Him each day. It isn’t because we stop having sex or cussing. It isn’t because of us. We don’t get to credit ourselves for the love of God. Doing so will always lead to pride and bondage.
Ephesians 2:4-9 “But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast.”
What do we learn about God’s attitude towards us?
He wants us. God did not make us alive by our good works. We were not given life because we behaved well enough or prayed good enough. While we were dead—actively sinning, actively disrespecting, actively and willfully choosing our own pleasure—He sent His son to die for us. Christ died while we were still dead. Christ hung where each of us should be, but His love and mercy, kept us and revived us.
He expresses His heart towards us through Christ. His grace and mercy, love and kindness, faithfulness and goodness, is expressed through Christ. Meaning, if we don’t know or accept Christ we will never grow to understand the depth of God’s character and heart.
He doesn’t need us. Works done out of insecurity and devotion rooted in fear become ways to make ourselves valuable in our own eyes. If I do enough, I’ll matter to Him. If I’m obedient enough, He won’t turn away from me. If I, then He. In all this, we place ourselves at the center. God’s love and grace, we imagine, must somehow be earned through our own goodness or attempts at righteousness, but that is a lie. We don’t, through our behavior, create a space in God’s heart that we must maintain or that He could somehow outgrow. He chose us long before we did anything to deserve it, and in His love, He sent His Son to die on our behalf.
“You know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thought afar off. You comprehend my path and my lying down, And are acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word on my tongue, But behold, O Lord, You know it altogether.” psalms 139:2-4 [niv]
There’s no amount of good we can do to make ourselves more valuable or worthy to God. He doesn’t need our help in loving us. We didn’t do anything to make Him choose us, so we can’t do anything to make Him stop. But why, then, do we even want to try? Why do we strive to earn His love or justify ourselves before Him? Is it a hidden attempt to grasp some glory for ourselves? A way to prove we aren’t that bad? Perhaps it’s a way to avoid confronting the truth about our own darkness and need for Him. Confronting the truth about ourselves allows us to experience His love all the more. He didn’t die for a good or just person, a holy or righteous person. He died for us while we still despised and ignored Him. He died when we still treated Him like He was nothing. It goes against everything we learn in human relationships, where love often feels conditional, tied to what we do or who we are. But with God, His love isn’t temperamental or based on any conditions. He loved us first. He loved us most. That’s why He sacrificed His Son, why we have access to His grace and mercy—not because of anything we did right, but entirely because of who He is.
When we define ourselves through Christ and embrace what God declares about us in scripture, insecurity has no choice but to leave. Perfect love drives out fear—remember? Insecurity has no place in our relationship with God. It holds no power over our thoughts or actions because we have been made new through Christ. As we begin this week, let’s put God in His rightful place, fix our eyes on Christ, who is the full expression of God’s heart toward us, and let His love reshape and redefine everything about us.
