those things which are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.” (Deuteronomy 29:29) The secret things of scriptures are not mine or yours; they are God’s.
THEY ARE HARD TO ADMIT
Insecurities are hard to admit. The reasons insecurities, and this one of greatness in particular, are hard to admit, is because to admit having insecurities means that we would have to admit something is wrong with ourselves. To admit we have insecurities means to confess something that is true about us that we presumed not to be true. To say you are insecure about not being the greatest, you would have to admit you actually wanted greatness. One would have to admit the impulses and the decisions that were previously made had the aroma of wanting greatness for the sake of approval. And this is difficult, because it may make you look foolish in the face of your family and friends.
I have perceived it to be like jumping off a diving board into a pile of horse dung. After you get up, you smell like crap. The people don’t want to be around you, because you smell like crap. I see it like this all the time. For instance, many college-age men I encounter rarely admit to the women that they are pursuing or dating, “Sometimes I have a fear of leading because I fear that I will lead in the wrong direction.”
Women consider the question Beth Moore used in her book, So long Insecurities, “What if you are single and there is not a man on the horizon you want to take home to daddy? Can you honestly say that a man does not give validity to our womanhood?” Can you?
What are a few other circumstances where it would be hard for a person to admit insecurities? It is like a man who feels ready to be a husband, but then is faced with circumstances in the marriage that call attention to his weaknesses. Or it like a high school student who graduated high with all A’s, but in college feels like the dumbest person in the world once he or she gets a C on final exam, or like a business student who excelled in academics in undergraduate and graduate school. However, that person is later overcome with thoughts of insufficiency as they graduate and step into the threshold of the “real world.”
Robb Willer, a sociology professor at Berkeley, conducted a study on “masculinity overcompensation.” The study included 111 college-age male participants. In the study he found that “Masculinity-threatened men reported feeling ashamed, guilty, upset, and hostile more often than did masculinity-confirmed men.”
The study confirms my belief. I honestly believe that when there is a weakness that threatens masculinity, men present themselves as overly confident so no one suspects they are weak, while others revert to crawling away and hiding for fear of being discovered as weak.
Admitting shame, which is a trait of insecurity, can be painful, as I have seen, because a person does not want to dwell on how they have let down their parents, grandparents or peers. They may say things like, “I am just in waiting for my opportunity to be noticed by such and such a company.” Or they may say, “I am not insecure, I just need to get over this hump then I will be okay.”
In a late article in Psychology Today, there were some very striking finds about the insecurity of businessmen and women. This question was asked of over one hundred adults in their early twenties: “Do you think you’ll do better than your parents?” or a slightly different version: “Do you still believe in the American Dream?” the majority of the young adults said, “absolutely.”
But when asked about their own experience, their parents’ experience, when presented with the fact that this generation is not as socially mobile (meaning education) as their parents, and that it’s harder to be upwardly mobile in this country than in many European countries, one person replied this way, “You know, I’ve never admitted this to anyone, but I’m worried that I won’t do as well as my parents.” One young woman, who grew up on the Main Line in Philadelphia, was nearly distraught at the prospect that she would not be able to give her kids the same lifestyle she had when growing up.
What this study shows is that we are face to face with new, hard, or difficult circumstances that make us feel shame. For some, there may be shame because the dreams of success are not looking as promising as originally foreseen. For others, there may be shame at the thought of not providing for a family. For these reasons, and so many others, insecurities are hard to admit. We can keep pretending there is no shame; but if we do, we unknowingly abandon our hope for the grace of God to comfort us when we need comfort.
A verse in 2 Thessalonians reminds us of this by saying, “Now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word (2:16-17). This passage tells us that our eternal comfort and good help come through grace.
Indeed insecurities are hard to admit; but ironically, admitting you are insecure begets the process of stripping away who we know ourselves to be and allows our minds to receive the much-needed grace of God. Martin Luther said, “A man must completely despair of himself in order to become fit to obtain the grace of Christ.”
John Bunyan, an English Christian writer and preacher, famous for writing The Pilgrim’s Progress, once said: “Grace can pardon our ungodliness and justify us with Christ’s righteousness; it can put the Spirit of Jesus Christ within us; it can help us when we are down; it can heal us when we are wounded; it can multiply pardons, as we through frailty multiply transgressions.”
What keeps you from admitting insecurities? We need God’s comfort so much more than we know, and most times we have to be real frank with God. We just need to say something as simple as, “I am insecure.” We need God’s grace so much more than we ask. We need God’s healing power even when we try to shield ourselves from Him the most with our many transgressions.
THEY ARE DAUNTING TO FIGHT AGAINST
Can you remember how you have fought insecurities in the past? I want to guess that whatever the method was, it either worked sometimes or it did not work at all. This is my hypothesis because I come to understand in many ways, and not just my own life, that insecurities are daunting to fight against. Insecurities are daunting to fight against, but they must be fought against for the treasuring of Christ.
It is hard to know what to do with insecurities when you approach something new, different, or hard. There are many ways people think about it. What do you do? Do you gut it out? Do you go to therapy? Do you keep encouraging yourself? Do you bank on people encouraging you? Do you hope in the day that you will be one hundred percent confident? Should you use medication?
There are some ways that I have fought insecurities, before writing this book. It included relying on encouragement from people close to me. I relied on it because it made me feel good when I was low. It made me feel happy when my heart was like the Seattle sky: gray and foggy. People would tell me, “Reyshawn you are good at this,” or “You are a good-looking guy,” or “I really enjoy the poetry you write.” Someone could tell me how great I am a thousand times; nevertheless I, after a while, would deny the encouragement’s penetration to my heart a thousand times. This stopped working because I did not believe what was said.
I also tried to fight my insecurities by pushing and pressing into a situation, looking past my insecurities and taking risks. Like the Little Engine that Could, I would coach myself, “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.” Whenever I had enough foreknowledge of the problem I was taking on, it was not at all troublesome to get through the pain without any need of encouragement. Yet, when I had no idea that I was insecure about something so small, like forgetting an appointment, I would swell up with insecurities saying, “Why did I forget that appointment? I am always forgetting stuff like this. I hate this quality about me.”
For others, fighting insecurities are little bit more daunting.
