I Am Secure

Have you ever found yourself craving attention or encouragement so much that you couldn’t rest until someone said or did something to validate you? That’s a case of insecurity, and our society today suffers from an epidemic of it. Countless people are insecure, which can and often does lead to a constant need for an approval fix.

For instance, someone came to me many years ago to tell me that a woman who attended one of my Bible studies was hurt because I didn’t speak to her when I passed her in the hallway. The truth was that I didn’t even see her—I definitely wasn’t trying to ignore her! It wasn’t my desire to hurt her or anyone else, but I quickly discovered that insecure people crave attention from those they see as important.

Since I taught the Bible study, this woman viewed me as important, so attention from me would have made her feel important. But God doesn’t want us to get our sense of worth from people’s attention—He wants us to be secure in His love for us. Only then can we become our true, confident selves, free to do what God has placed in our hearts to do. In fact, the Lord may have actually prevented me from seeing her because He wanted her to learn that she was deeply precious and important to Him, whether I spoke to her or not.

People can deal with insecurities for various reasons. For example, those who have been hurt by rejection or abandonment often seek others’ approval to alleviate the pain of low self-esteem. This may work for a while, but eventually the continual need for approval becomes a burden—not only to the person who needs it but also to those who are pressured to give it. The best plan is to trust God for the encouragement you need and let Him give it to you Himself or through whoever He chooses to use. When you receive your encouragement and affirmation from Jesus, you’re able to stay secure even on the days when people don’t affirm you.

Every building must have a strong foundation to stand on, or it will crumble in storms or high winds. You and I also need a strong foundation in order to fulfill our destiny and live a blessed and joy-filled life. We need the foundation of knowing who God says we are—that we are His precious and valuable children. We need to be secure in the fact that we are loved by God more than we could ever ask for or imagine.

We can’t be assured of getting this kind of security from people, but we can have it through our relationship with God. His will is for each of us to be secure so we won’t be tormented or hindered in life because of a lack of confidence. I believe the foundation for security and confidence is accepting God’s unconditional love and abiding in it each day. It’s also important to accept ourselves even though we realize we have weaknesses and are not perfect.

Jesus took our sin and gave us His righteousness (Romans 5:21; 2 Corinthians 5:21). Or, in simpler words, Jesus took our “wrongness” and gave us His “rightness.” We no longer have to obsessively think about what is wrong with us or let that make us insecure. Instead, we can be confident and secure, knowing we are made right with God through Jesus.

_{Adapted from the book Authentically, Uniquely You by Joyce Meyer. Copyright 2021 by Joyce Meyer. Published by FaithWords. All rights reserved.}