My mom, oldest of her siblings, was abandoned after her birth mother had several more children with a different man. Mom was taken in and adopted by an aunt who turned abusive and mom in turn filed for emancipation. With the help of social services, she hoped to make a home with her birth father, an alcoholic, but he refused to give up drinking. Finally, mom moved in with the family of her best girlfriend until she finished high school and married my dad. They were married a few weeks shy of 50 years, the last 3-1/2 dad cared for mom following a crippling stroke. It was during those years mom came to trust in the love dad had for her and rest assured she would never be abandoned again.

So we learn from our parents, right?

Mom and dad raised me to be polite, kind, respectful and Christian. Unfortunately, I was also raised to be insecure and prone to self-blame. Unintended of course, but in a home with such an undercurrent of emotion and me an empath, I learned my self worth hung on the approval and acceptance of others.

Rejection, more than any other of life’s blows, throws me headlong into the pit of despair. What did I do? How can I make things right? Questions I know all too well and rarely got an answer for. Some people have just enough intuition to identify someone’s “buttons” and then manipulate them. Still, no one pushed my “insecurity” button more than I did and I could always find new and creative reasons for pushing it, including doubts about the love and security of God.

I tried to deal with insecurity by adopting an “I don’t care what you think” attitude. On the surface, that seems effective, but in reality it’s just a form of gas-lighting or flipping the script.

Believing I’d overcome insecurity, it resurfaced in virulent form when two friends parted ways with me over my use of humor in a few short articles. My writing came to a halt and I strained to hear God’s voice over the great upset within me. On an afternoon Karen went to lunch with a friend, the Lord called me to spend time with Him. I played and sang, read scriptures He brought to mind and prayed about my insecurity. “Kill it or kill me, I’m done” I prayed – so tired I was of feeling abandoned. After several hours under the afternoon sun, waiting and listening, I grew tired and went in to take a nap.

I slept hard and when I woke, the Lord was there waiting and He began to confront me with questions in that “come let us reason together” way of His. Pointed questions that forced me to see and confess the unshakable character of God who loves me. His examination showed me clearly that His love for me, His saving me, His presence within me and His oneness with me, have nothing to do with me or my character; not one thing. All of it has to do with His character, and His character alone. As Isaiah wrote:

I am the God who forgives your sins, and I do this because of who I am. I will not hold your sins against you. (Isaiah 43:25 GNB) And again:

What I do is done for my own sake— I will not let my name be dishonored or let anyone else share the glory that should be mine and mine alone.” (Isaiah 48:11 GNB)

Expressing my deep regret and sorrow for giving rise to fear and insecurity and thereby impugning His matchless character, He had more to show me. Prompted to read what the Bible says about insecurity I looked up a number of web pages all of which recommended hurling select scriptures at my insecurity monster until it retreated. “Great” I thought, “formula Christianity. Just the ticket for anyone who wants to do battle with that resurgent insecurity beast every day for the rest of their life.” I was so tired of battling that miserable tyrant insecurity. It’s an emotional roller-coaster and I was beyond tired of the ride. I wanted insecurity dead and buried, for good.

And then, finally, I saw it; something in common with every scripture that jumped out at me:

Fear not … (because) … God.

No condemnation … (because) … Christ.

It isn’t the scriptures, used in the hope of firing a silver bullet into the heart of an otherwise un-dead enemy, it’s the person and authority behind the scripture.

With wide-eyed recognition, I watched my Savior rise! Name above all names! The Living Word! He drew insecurity out into the open, confronted it and in a single moment, laid waste to that which I could not defeat in a lifetime, much less summon the courage to face once more. My carefully planned course of avoidance never brought victory. But now the enemy has been exposed and my Savior trampled it under foot. I was left shaken and with tears of awe and gratitude.

Since the Lord routed my insecurity and placed it beneath my feet, I’ve been blessed to count the spoils of His victory: peace, rest and joy, to name but a few. Daily when I awake, I remember the cry of my Savior as He marched out onto the battle field for me:

Never will I leave you nor forsake you (Hebrews 13:5).

Thank God, Goliath is dead! He would attack from anywhere and overwhelm me with his threats and accusations. I can’t count the number of times I returned fire with scripture or testimony of the many ways in which the Lord proved His love for me. But Goliath just wouldn’t die for me.

Not a demon, my Goliath, but the personification of hurtful thoughts I picked up from a hurting parent, who long after departing, lives on in my memory. Old tapes, long distorted, for which there is no off button. Doubtful I’d have ever found the off button for mine had the Lord not intervened.

Often the Lord surprises me with further revelation after such an event. In fact surprise is one of the ways I know it’s Him calling. He comes in unannounced and never uses the door. After trampling my Goliath under foot, the Lord called my attention to the photo of General Fallon from the movie “Jack the Giant Slayer”. The Lord said “He has another head” and at once I understood that my insecurity had partnered with insincerity.

In the still photos of General Fallon, the larger head expresses anger while the smaller head expresses amusement. Where the actions of General Fallon as a whole are angry and destructive, the expressions of the smaller head seem insincere, maniacal or deranged.

How that relates is this: previously I said that “… my self worth hung upon the approval and acceptance of others …” and later I said “… I’ve dealt with insecurity by adopting an “I don’t care what you think” attitude.”

Do you see the contradiction? A person who relies on the approval and acceptance of others cares greatly what other people think. For the insecure person, hell is that place of trying to live between the 2 extremes. Insincerity puts up walls of denial, building a fortress against the secret hurt. An insecure believer is a frustrated believer, a sometimes angry and desperate believer. Living with torment, weariness and sorrow; it opposes the Lord’s peace, rest and joy. The insecure believer dare not reveal their true self and so they put on a mask of socially acceptable Christianity, which is insincerity with others.

To manage my own feelings of insecurity, I often went above and beyond to earn the approval and acceptance of others. Inclined to charity and generosity, my good works were not altogether sincere in as much as they were a peace-offering rendered unto my insecurity. A pay-off. I was, in a sense, making a sacrifice to a false god; not a benevolent god, but a cruel taskmaster who struck fear into my heart and whom I could not defeat on my own.

Thankfully, our God is still a jealous God, who commands that we have no other gods before Him. And where I failed to rid the land that is my body kingdom and temple of a false god who asserted itself before the one living God, He fought the battle on my behalf when finally I threw down my feeble weapons and stepped aside.

The Lord declared to my Lord,
‘Sit at My right hand
until I put Your enemies under Your feet’ (Matthew 22:44)

Forgive me, Lord, for ever giving voice, let alone entertaining the very notion, that You might ever leave or abandon me.

Says the Lord: I will never leave you nor forsake you. Hebrews 13:5

NOTE: If the testimony of the Lord healing my abandonment and insecurity issues has been a blessing to you, there is another testimony of His healing my wounded heart of loneliness. Check out the post He Possesses my Reins (link). Blessings! Jack