Insecurities, the Fear of People, Regrets, and Failure BY Edward T. Welch for Core Christianity
We all have voices that tell us we are never enough. If we measure up in school, we don’t in sports or attractiveness or anything else. We always have voices, around us and in us, that assure us we are, indeed, substandard—or average, which feels just as bad.
Hiding, insecurity, not comfortable in our own skin, failure, feeling worthless or at least worth less than others, fears of rejection, past regrets that we’d prefer weren’t known—all these are features of everyday life. Left to themselves, they grow into shame and self-loathing.
Too often we want to hide, or at least hide some part of ourselves.
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We hide because we are not . . . enough.
Hiding, of course, comes with its own problems.
Hiding reduces our close relationships to mere acquaintances. We put on a face, so we are never fully known. The result? We become more and more isolated. Relationships can’t thrive with such privacy. As if this weren’t bad enough, our human relationships reveal details of our relationship with God. If you hide before other people, you will hide before God. If you are not open with God, you are not open with other people. The two go hand-in-hand. But life goes on, and, somehow, you wake up tomorrow and keep going. Human beings are resilient, at least for a while.
God’s words in Scripture can seem worlds apart from these everyday struggles. We know what God says about murder, lying, and unfaithfulness. Our fragile inner worlds, however, are a different matter. We know that God speaks to our spiritual lives, which we think of as prayer and Bible reading. But we wonder if we need something else to speak to the hidden parts of our lives—the fears, shame, regret, and failures.
Let’s try a different course: God created us to be open and honest with him and with each other. If you have ever had that kind of relationship, you know this to be true. If you have never had that kind of relationship, you want it. God speaks in detail, with gentleness and wisdom, about these critical matters of life, and what he says is very good. With this in mind, we listen and search until hope sneaks in—and our need to hide begins to fade.
Addressing our insecurities and failures.
We begin with insecurity—that underlying feeling that we are not quite adequate. Here is a wide entry to Scripture. We are all familiar with it, and we are all invited to listen. Our insecurities are also a less jarring start than struggles such as feeling worthless and humiliation, which will come later, and insecurities seem to be less tied to our identities.
Then we will consider failure, which is harder to face. We can feel insecure without having a long list of significant failures. Failure confirms our suspicions; we really are losers.
