When people are insecure, they can express it in very different ways, depending on their temperament, values, and conditioned habits, all often shaped by past experiences. In some, insecurity looks like meekness, compliance, and always assuming blame. In others, it looks like bravado, defiance, and never admitting wrong. In one person, insecurity moves them to avoid attention if at all possible; in another, it moves them to demand as much attention as possible.
We’re all familiar with insecurity, but what’s making us feel this way — and how do we get free from it?
What Is Insecurity?
Insecurity is a form of fear, and God does mean for certain things to make us feel insecure.
If we walk out on someone’s second-story deck and notice the wood is rotting, we should feel insecure. If we live or work with someone who’s dishonest or abusive, we should feel insecure. If we’re riding in a military convoy along a lonely Afghan road through Taliban territory, we should feel insecure. When we first come under conviction of sin and realize we’re under God’s wrath because we’re not reconciled to him through Christ, we should feel insecure.
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God designed insecurity as a warning that we are vulnerable to some kind of danger. It instructs us to take some protective action.
But in the current American vernacular, what we typically mean by “insecure” is not just a circumstantially induced fear, but a fear so recurrent that we refer to it as a state of being. We talk of “being insecure” or we might say so-and-so is an “insecure person.” And what we mean by insecure is feeling a significant lack of self-confidence, or a powerful fear of others’ disapproval or rejection, or a chronic sense of inferiority.
But what are we afraid of? What danger is this kind of insecurity warning us against? It’s telling us that our identity is uncertain or threatened.
