Author: bluebirduncaged

Remember when I was putting myself down in order to not be “proud?” Well, during that time, I started looking around and comparing myself to other people. Eventually, I became insecure and began to feel terrible about myself. Through my insecurity, God led me to realize that I needed to surrender an area to Him. After I surrendered, God gave me freedom and joy in the place of my self-consciousness as well as a glimpse of just how big He really is.

Insecurity is the opposite of over-confidence yet it stems from the same sin—trusting in yourself. When we are insecure, we are fearful because we personally do not have control over everything. As a result, we take the burden upon ourselves to make everything work.

When we try to take things into our own hands, we put God in a box. We tell Him that we don’t trust Him enough to direct our life. We squeeze God down to something smaller than us and, in a sense, place ourselves before Him. Because we trust in our own strength, we become discouraged. According to Oswald Chambers, “Discouragement is disenchanted self-love.”

When we are insecure or self-conscious, our relationship with God suffers. We end up fighting God because we alternate between trusting Him and trusting ourselves. Our times of introspection and insecurity show us what is most important to us–what we’re afraid of losing most.

When we hit times of insecurity, God is often trying to tell us that we need to give something up and surrender it to Him. Oswald Chambers says,

“Self-consciousness is the first thing that will upset the completeness of the life in God, and self-consciousness continually produces wrestling…Anything that disturbs rest in Him must be cured at once, and it is not cured be being ignored but by coming to Jesus Christ. If we come to Him and ask Him to produce Christ-consciousness, He will always do it until we learn to abide in Him.”

It’s during these times that God pries our fingers off of what we think is ours and says ‘give it to me’. And we can choose continue to wrestle or to give it to him and rest in peace that He has it under control.

Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you. ~1 Peter 5:7

This is one of my favorite speakers and my favorite sermon of his. He's actually starting a church in Atlanta if you want to come check it out.

I used to be afraid of being prideful. Whenever I felt that I was getting prideful, I would squelch it by lying to myself. I would say, ’no, you’re not good at that.’ After a while though, I actually started to believe it. I thought that by having a low view of myself, I was being humble. My view of humility was characterized by not bringing any attention to yourself. I had this view that I almost had to become average to be humble. This kept me from pursuing excellence wholeheartedly; it made me constantly look around and compare myself to others. Continually putting myself down eventually led to insecurity which is detrimental spiritually and emotionally.

I had the wrong view of humility. Humility is not putting yourself down so that others will not feel bad. Jesus was the most humble person on earth and He went around proclaiming that He was the Son of God and confronting people

about their sin; he even threw people out of the temple. So what is humility? How do you balance being too complacent and too cocky?

My dad says that humility is power constrained. It is knowing that you have the ability to do something great, but only exercising that power at the correct moments. Just like a horse with a bit in its mouth. Because the horse has a bit in its mouth, doesn’t deny the fact that it can run, jump or buck; it simply means that its power is under control.

In the same way, our gifts should be like the horse. We should use them to exercise our strength when needed and restrain it when needed. This doesn’t mean that we parade our gifts around for all to see; nor does it mean we hide our gifts for fear of showing off. We should accept the gifts that God gave us and use them for His glory. He’ll let us know when it is appropriate to bring the tools out of the shed. All we have to do is trust Him and follow His lead.

Man looks at the outward appearance…

In this world there is a cause and effect relationship between what we do and who we are perceived to be. As humans we think our acceptance is based on our actions. In some ways, this is true. If we choose to buy designer clothing, we are perceived to be rich; if we choose not to go to certain parties, we are considered antisocial. All of us, to some degree or another, worry about what other people think.

Oftentimes, when we get caught up in how we are perceived it can be detrimental. When we start to make decisions based on what other people think or how they will treat us, we gain an unhealthy outlook. We start to lose confidence in ourselves and rely on others to build our identity. We also become unable to make decisions based on bare facts and wisdom. Instead, we count on other humans to make decisions for us.

Most of us wouldn’t think that we fall into the acceptance trap; we think we are true to ourselves. Yet this habit creeps in unexpectedly. Maybe it’s pleasing our parents; or trying to dance well when the director is looking; or maybe it’s choosing the decision that’s popular among that particular group of friends.

But the Lord looks at the heart…

The worst part is when we play the acceptance game with God. We think if I do this, I’ll be more spiritual or if I pray this, God will like it better. But the truth is, though people may care what we do, God doesn’t love us any more or less based on our actions. When we play the acceptance game with God, we are relying on ourselves to bring Him glory. In essence, we are actually robbing God of His glory.

To keep from getting caught in the acceptance trap, we need to take our eyes off of the world and focus on God. We need to rest in the fact that our identity is found in Him; we bring Him glory simply by being His child and following Him. He holds our future and no matter what others may think, it’s God’s opinion that matters.