Stepping Out of My Insecurity...

If insecurity speaks to you, what lies do you hear? Perhaps they have to do with your relationships or your career. Maybe they are connected to your abilities and gifts, or your perceived lack of them. Or maybe they are related to your appearance or your accomplishments. Perhaps your insecurities are a combination of several of these. 

Do they start with words such as "You will never be good enough to..." or "You are lousy at..." or "You don't belong because..."? 

Maybe they try to tell you, "You're not very pretty next to..." or "You have to admit that you are lacking in..." or "You're just not confident enough to..."

Maybe the lies you hear come from inside your head, or maybe they are  thrown at you from others. Someone has flung damaging words your way, and you have not been able to dodge them. That person's flawed view of you has left a bruise. Satan loves to use such lies to discourage us and deem us ineffective.

Trapped by insecurity, we may stop in our tracks instead of stepping out to serve, lead, or give, because we are convinced that we don't have enough of the right skill or ability - or we aren't good enough - for God to work with in order to accomplish His purposes...

The enemy is intent on filling our minds with destructive thoughts, redirecting our focus to what we may be lacking, what we don't have to offer, and how we are completely insufficient. He seeks to convince us of our failings, either through our own negative beliefs about ourselves or through others' critical words or actions against us. 

Then Jesus steps in! He forgives us for falling so easily for Satan's lies, for the lies that caused us to sink into the depths of insecurity. He lifts us out of those depths so we may look to Him, our All-Sufficiency, who so richly provides all that we do have to offer - which is more than enough for Him to accomplish His purposes through us! 

"Such is the confidence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God" (2 Corinthians 3:4-5).

Led by the Lord, we step out of that insecure place into one where we are emboldened to serve Him with confidence, not the so-called self-confidence the world speaks of, but God confidence, which is incomparably greater! 

We are confident not because we think we have all that it takes, but because we know the One who does. We know the One who is working in and through us to accomplish His perfect plans. 

"God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work" (2 Corinthians 9:8)

From Stepping Out by Deb Burma © 2013 CPH. Reprinted with permission