Insecure & Inadequate

Do you ever feel like you’re just not enough? I rise each morning doubting my abilities and the demands that lay ahead of me that day. I return to bed at night, worrying about who all I disappointed that day and all the ways I came up short. I am riddled by insecurity.

I tend to obsess over what I am. I mostly obsess over what I’m not. Whether its my looks, my big (obnoxious) laugh that cackles, eyes that release tears too easily, lack of athletic ability, swollen ankles, skills that I don’t think amount to very much… I am left feeling small. Inadequate.

And I am sure I am not alone.

I postponed starting this blog due to my insecurity. I wondered if I had anything substantial to offer. I questioned why my thoughts and experiences should take up any real estate on the internet. Would anyone actually read this thing? Would people still like me if they really knew me? I still wonder if I have anything to offer. I still worry people will find my thoughts small or off-putting. But bigger than my insecurity is my belief that God doesn’t waste a hurt.

I will never forget what our Pastor in Hawaii once preached. It’s been over a decade, but I can still hear Wayne Cordeiro preaching in my head as if it was yesterday. “Satan is a headhunter. Our mind is his battlefield. Imagination is his trophy. Satan mutates our thinking. He does this by the lies he places in our minds. He is the father of all lies.”

Satan is sneaky. He doesn’t have to use anything big or flashy in order to cripple me. He just manipulates my thinking. And if I’m not careful, these lies put down deep roots in my soul, leaving my paralyzed. He cleverly disables us by using our feelings of inferiority, inadequacy and insecurity. Satan loves it when he takes us out of the fight.

Perhaps if he can get us to devalue ourselves, we won’t be able to accept the gift that God gave us. We feel unworthy. Too often I forget that God has a vested interest in me. But Jesus wears the marks on his hands as proof. He died for me. While I was still a sinner. While I was still unworthy. He died so that I may live, and not just live a watered-down life that Satan tries to relegate me to. God calls me his daughter. How must He feel when I call myself worthless or dumb? God values me so highly, He sent his son to die in my stead. How must he feel when I declare I’m not enough?

This past Sunday, Pastor Ken’s sermon was entitled “My Inadequacies and God’s Power”. I ran out of space on my sermon notes, as this subject really hit home for me (I live in fear and I feel inadequate 90% of the time). Ken reminded me that for those of us who call ourselves Christians, we came to Christ because we realized we were inadequate. He made me realize that I’ve been putting my focus in the wrong place. In keeping tabs of all the ways I come up short, I’ve been focused on me. I have lost sight of God’s power. I am so transfixed on my own weaknesses, that I discount that God has shared His power with me.

“Changing the orientation of your mind from your weakness to God’s power requires a hardball choice to trust God, a type of mental tenacity that most people don’t associate with Christianity” (Bill Hybels).

Honestly, I’m not writing this as a person who has this figured out. Heck, I’m feeling really insecure about this post and that I’m just rambling on. But, this is a daily fight. Every day it’s a fight to recalibrate my mind. “I am going to listen to God’s opinion of me and let Him reprogram me until His loving estimate of me becomes a part of my life, right down to my innermost feelings” (David Seamonds & Beth Funk, Healing for Damaged Emotions).

So to you – worn sister, who just doesn’t feel like enough. To you, dear brother – the one drowning in self-doubt: consider how valued you are to God. He planned you. He designed you. He died for you. He delights in you.