So Long Insecurity Page 13
Oh, beloved, you are so much stronger than you give yourself credit for. If you are in Christ, you have divine power. In your gravest weakness, His strength is perfected. Sometimes it’s imperative for a woman to give a good second look to what she’s wearing out the door that day. If Christ is your Savior, sister, you are completely covered by a cloak of strength. But that’s not all. You are clothed with strength. . . .
. . . And Dignity
Scripture doesn’t say a woman of valor is clothed with strength and masculinity. It doesn’t say she is clothed with strength and inaccessibility. It doesn’t say she is clothed with strength and no humility. It says she is clothed with strength and dignity. This is the perfect time to point out that the woman of valor painted in Proverbs 31 happens to be a really terrific wife. The word translated “wife” in most versions of Proverbs 31:10 (as in the New International Version: “A wife of noble character who can find?”) is a word that also simply means “woman.” The word could refer to one who is single as easily as one who has a husband. In the context of Proverbs 31:10-31, the woman was married, and therefore, the translation as “wife” instead of “woman” works well. I’ll tell you why I’m making an issue out of it.
If we think that the means to security around men is our superiority, we’re headed for a rude awakening. If we have to get mad at men in order to feel better about being women, we are no different than the feminists who erupted out of the sixties. Some women think that they can’t be biblical wives and maintain their dignity too. To those women I say this: we don’t have to hate ourselves to love a man or hate a man to love ourselves.
If she’s got her head on straight and understands how to apply the biblical concepts correctly, a married woman who claims her dignity back is far more of a prize to her man than the one who doesn’t. A marriage is never benefited by either partner’s lack of dignity. In Proverbs 31:23, the fact that her husband was “respected at the city gate” wasn’t in spite of the fact that his wife was clothed in strength and dignity, but at least in part because of it.
Pride is dignity’s counterfeit. Never lose sight of that. We don’t forfeit our humility in order to get over insecurity. That brings us to an important question: what exactly is dignity? The same Hebrew term translated “dignity” in the passage about the woman of valor’s apparel is found in sublime words written by the psalmist to his Creator. Revel in the context.
When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him? You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.
Psalm 8:3-5
Here the word is translated “honor” in English instead of “dignity,” but it is derived from the same Hebrew term12 and holds the identical meaning. We can insert our key word without damaging the meaning of the verse one iota:
You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and [dignity].
We have dignity precisely because God Himself gave it to us, His prized creation. You and I, along with every other human being on the planet, possess dignity because God Himself has it and He created us in His image. (The word is elsewhere translated as “splendor” in reference to Him.) God didn’t just confer dignity to us. According to Psalm 8:5, He crowned us with it. We are wise to note that all people have God-given dignity even if they don’t yet have eternal life through Jesus Christ.
To possess dignity is to be worthy of respect. Worthy of high esteem. Absorb this: you are worthy of respect. So am I. No matter how foolish insecurity has tried to make us feel, we have the right to dignity because God Himself gave it to us. If we really believed this truth, we wouldn’t have to mask our insecurity with pride. If we knew who we were and what God has conferred upon us, what everybody else thought of us would grow less and less significant.
One last thing as we close this chapter. Notice that God didn’t put this honor/dignity in our hands. He put it on our heads. He wrapped it as a crown right around our minds, just where we need it most. Our possession of dignity is not always something we feel. It’s got to be something we know. Something we emphatically claim.
A few days ago I watched a debate on public television involving Dr. Deepak Chopra. I’ve thought and thought about the irony of something he said: “All belief is a cover-up for insecurity.”
Quite the contrary, sir. All insecurity is a cover-up for unbelief.
She is clothed with strength and dignity.
Believe it, sister.
Chapter 9
A Time and Place to Heal
I don’t have a scrap of interest in someone just reading this book. My determined goal and lofty hope is that every reader will find herself being loosed from the grip of insecurity, chapter by chapter. We’ve talked about how much we need our dignity back, but if the only thing we do is talk about it, we might be more informed, but we are no less insecure. To stir the pot we’re drowning in doesn’t do anything but intensify the undercurrent and draw us further down. In this book, we’re going to do infinitely more than accrue information. We’re about to make a soulful petition that we can date, document, and return to for years to come.
In the next few pages, we’re going to present a pointed request to God, asking Him to help us reclaim our dignity and to prime our souls for security. Then we’re going to actively and deliberately receive what He gives to us. If this kind of approach is new to you, don’t freak out on me. I’ve purposely taken the guesswork out of the process and worded the concepts in ways that should resonate regardless of your background. Anyway, what do you have to lose but a little insecurity and indignity?
We’re not waiting until the end of the book to do this because we need our God-given dignity if we ever hope to be empowered to make the decisions, exercise the reactions, and use the tools we’ll discuss in the remaining chapters. We need something to happen now so we can be successful then. The beauty of having God in the picture is that we’re not limited to learning a few helpful lessons that might lend occasional insight. We get to ask for a supernatural act of God Himself. We get to draw from the bottomless sea of divine strength. Even if you know very little about what the Bible says, I want you to lock your gaze upon these two verses and grasp their bearing on our journey.
This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.
1 John 5:14-15
Hear this at a yell: it is God’s will for you to have your dignity and security restored. You don’t need to wrestle with this one. You don’t need to read six more books. You don’t need to ponder the subject matter until your next big disaster. This one is cut and dry. There are plenty of times when the precise will of God on a matter seems legitimately unclear. You may not know whether He’s leading you to change jobs, marry a certain guy, or relocate, for instance, but other questions are answered before we ask them. After twenty-five years of study, if I know Genesis from Revelation, I can promise you that God wills for us to walk out the depth and breadth of our lives with dignity and security. Neither God nor you have anything to gain by your persistent insecurity.
When it comes to dignity and security, we have a golden opportunity to know in advance that we are praying the will of God for our lives. And we need to cash in that request posthaste. We can count on the answer being as sure as the appeal. In fact, if you’re willing to exercise the kind of boldness that excites the heart of God, you can go right ahead and thank Him in advance because you know that what you’ve asked is as good as done. Sometimes we see or sense the evidence immediately. Other times God lets it amass bit by bit.
So here’s what I’m asking you to do. Find a private place where you can be undisturbed and undistracted for at least half an hour. If you can take a little longer to process the emotions with the meditation
s, the healing will be more substantial. Some of you may even have the means to get away overnight and have a retreat of sorts with God. That would be fantastic, but don’t let complicated arrangements keep you from accomplishing the goal. Better to take that half hour now and get it done! Whatever block of time you choose, make a determined choice to let everything else go for that segment. Rest assured, what you are doing alone with God during those moments will also benefit every other relationship and circumstance in your life. Set all other priorities aside for a while so that a healthier soul can pick them back up.
Get in a comfortable posture before God, someplace where you can sit, kneel, or even lie facedown. Don’t get antsy. We’re not getting all mystical here. We’re simply being mindful. You can find examples throughout Scripture where people took on postures of prayer that reflected their sincerity. I want you to fully engage. Count on the absolute certainty that God will hear you and meet with you through the power of His Spirit.
When you’ve set aside your time, place, and posture, begin the prayer guide that follows. Read it slowly, thoughtfully, and out loud as if it were rising spontaneously from your own heart. This guide has not been written hastily or randomly. I’ve never before felt the leadership of God to put anything like this prayer journey in a book or a study. I am convinced it was His idea for this particular message, and if it was, I know He intends to make good use of it. God is incapable of wasting our time. I’ve asked Him to equip me with the supernatural wisdom and insight to compose a prayer that will receive His resounding “Yes!” And I have no other choice but to trust that He has answered my earnest request.
As a concept resonates, simply pray it to God with honesty from the depths of your heart. The only thing you have to do to make this petition your own is to mean it. When I word something that is different from how you feel or what you’ve experienced, take over that portion with your own words and record what you’ve said in the margin. You will see that I have given you space at various points in the prayer journey to finish sentences for yourself. Documenting and personalizing this experience will be the lifeblood of your journey. You will be able to reflect on this process for years to come, read back over the words, and remember where your release began. You will also be able to return to this guide and pray through it again when insecurity sneaks back up on you—and invariably, it will.
That said, pray on, dear one, and let God have complete access to your soul as you do.
Dear God,
I come to You this moment because I need some things only You can give me. I need restoration, Lord. I need my dignity back. You alone know what insecurity has cost me, what trouble—even torment—it has caused me. You are intimately acquainted with every time it’s made a fool of me. You know how hard I’ve fought to play the game, but You also know that in the aftermath I’ve been defeated. I’m sick of faking. I’m sick of sulking. I desperately need and want to be delivered from my chronic insecurity. I am ready to discover what it means to be truly secure. I am willing to do whatever it takes to be free and to allow You to do through me what I cannot do for myself. You are the all-powerful, all-knowing Maker of heaven and earth and the grand Weaver of every human soul. You alone know how we are made and who we’re meant to be. I’m not asking for anything You’re not willing to give me. You have not shortchanged me. I have shortchanged myself and allowed my culture to sell me short.
You know the way I’m formed. You know what motivates me. You know what shuts me down. You know how driven I am by fear and how exhausted I am from surrendering to it. Lord, in the most hidden places, I am so afraid that . . .
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Deliver me, Lord. You have not given me a spirit of fear but of power, love, and a sound mind. That’s what Scripture says. I claim each of those priceless traits as mine this day. Your desire is for me to be free of every unhealthy motivation. Reveal any place they reside uncontested in me, and supply the courage I need to refuse to do their bidding. You have searched the deepest recesses of my heart and mind. I don’t need to hide anything from You or act stronger or more together than I am. Help me to come before You with complete transparency, and grant me a supernatural confidence that I am safe with You and loved by You. I don’t have to muster feelings I don’t possess or hang my head in defeat and shame. Because of Your grace, I can come to You just as I am. This is the way I would describe myself to You right now:
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But Lord, You know me better than I know myself. You know why I think like I do and why I feel like I do. You know my every thought. My every disappointment. You know every ugly or ridiculous thing I’ve ever said or done out of insecurity. You see every fissure in my soul, and You look beyond the point of my failure to the depth of my need. As You reveal Yourself to me, I ask that You also mercifully reveal myself to me. Grant me insight into patterns I’ve developed, and give me answers that bring healing. Make me wholly unafraid of anything that I might see in myself in the light You provide. Help me to trust that You only shed light where You’re willing to heal.
God, You know the complexities of my soul and that most of the time I can’t even figure myself out. You know how I swing like a dizzy pendulum between self-loathing and self-exaltation. As I begin this prayer of restoration, I ask You, Lord, to help me take responsibility for the insecurity that is my own doing. My own fault. My own sin. I am painfully aware that I’ve created some of my own misery. I have tried to make a god of myself too many times, and it hasn’t worked. It will never work. In calling me to this time of confession, Your desire is my freedom, not my self-condemnation, so with confidence, I welcome the one and reject the other. With these things in mind, hear my confessions:
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Please forgive me for my self-worship. For my relentless pursuit of control and for my futile attempts at doing Your job. Forgive me for my foolish pride. Forgive me for nursing my ego until it grows so fat that everything touching it bruises it. Forgive me for my miserable self-absorption. Forgive me for the jealousy and covetousness that feed my insecurity. Forgive me for turning too many things into competitions. For being so fixated on what I don’t have that I leave the gifts You’ve given me undeveloped and much less effective than You intended them to be. Forgive me for thinking pitifully little of the person You’ve made me. Forgive me for committing the flagrant sin of despising myself and considering myself inferior to others. Forgive me equally for every time I’ve sighed with relief at the thought that I might be superior after all.
Forgive me for my unbelief. If I realized how valuable I am, my insatiable need for affirmation would be quieted. Forgive me for being such a perfectionist that I resist doing something good out of fear that it won’t be great. Forgive me for the inordinate self-protection that has only managed to imprison me. Forgive me also for . . .
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This very moment I receive Your lavish forgiveness and Your complete cleansing and in Your name I release all the shame that has come from self-inflicted insecurity. From now on, Lord, and every day for the rest of my life, heighten my conviction until I’m instantly aware when insecurity is my own making. Help me to recognize any form of pride or unbelief and to refuse it immediately.
Now, Lord, I ask You to pull up the roots of insecurity that were not of my own doing, and usher in healing and restoration. You know every single place where instability has touched my life. You remember details that were long erased from my memory but are still inflicting insecurity. You know what first frightened me into believing that no one and nothing could be trusted and that I’m on my own out here in a very
unsafe world. You know the rational origin of every irrational fear. You know where I developed a belief system based on the frailties of man instead of the bedrock of You. You have been with me every moment, even when I felt there was no one to take care of me. I give You my whole heart. Touch every broken and wounded place with Your healing hand.
Lord, empower me to forgive those who have let me down, failed to protect me, or inflicted injury upon me. Help me to see them as needy, broken people in their own right, and Lord, where there is still life and opportunity, bring redemption to those relationships. Help me to understand the gravity of this juncture: that if I do not seek healing and wholeness, I will instead end up perpetuating the cycle of injury. Break the cycle with me, O Lord. Break the cycle with me.
Lord, come and treat my heart and soul where they have been shattered by loss. No one on earth can esteem the loss of something precious the way You can. You know the pain. You know the unbearable emptiness that can come with loss. You recognize my attempt to fill the void with things that never suffice. You know how my feelings frighten me and how the enemy of my soul would have me believe that I will never be okay. Make a liar out of him, Lord. Do not let him win. Do not let loss win. Be my gain, Lord. Flood my life with purpose and compassion. Be my strength in weakness.