I once heard a comedian on television say that he’d finally come to the conclusion that what a woman wants in a man is another woman. Isn’t that the truth? Don’t we frequently wish our men were more sensitive and nurturing? Don’t we wish they liked to eat at Souper Salad, see a good chick flick, and talk afterward about how it made them feel? Don’t we wish that just one stinking time they’d offer a massage instead of asking for one?
And then there are other times when we think if we have to hear another woman whine (no, not all women are whiners), we’re going to put our heads in the washing machine and hold our breath. You know you’re on the verge of unrealistic expectations when you want to tell your girlfriend to get some hair on her chest and take her situation like a man.
Understandably, we develop relationships in large part based on what we derive psychologically from them. Maybe you have a very sanguine friend who buoys you or brings an element of excitement to your life. But what if she doesn’t happen to be in a terrific mood when you meet up after work that day? Is that OK with you, or do you tend to be disappointed even if you don’t show it? Is there a part of you that feels like she let you down? You might have a mentor you look to for spiritual guidance, but she doesn’t seem as focused on you as she used to be. How easily do you roll with that kind of transition?
We can be so blessed in certain relationships that our unrealistic expectations often seem met and, therefore, reasonable. We can get away with thinking we’re secure people because, for a time, we have the important things just like we want them. But then change happens, and suddenly we are thrown for a severe emotional loop. We realize we weren’t secure. We were spoiled. One way we can detect insecurity is by our knee-jerk reaction to any level of change in a relationship, particularly if we perceive that the focus has shifted away from us. The more easily threatened we are, the more insecure we are. You can take that one to the bank.
I know what it’s like to inadvertently create an atmosphere where some measure of hurt is inevitable. In my vastly unhealthy days, I tended to handpick relationships in which I’d get mistreated in some ways. There have been other times when I’ve put so much stock in certain relationships that a crash was unavoidable. Thankfully, only a few of those collisions have been fatal. The rest of them, however, either stayed wrecked or took a good while to repair. If we let too much ride on a relationship, a blowout is inevitable. The very nature of pressure is to blow. The ramifications of this kind of insecurity reach all the way from a pattern of disappointment to unabated abuse.
Oddly, both the victim and the victimizer in toxic associations suffer from a similar malady. They’re both chronically insecure. Both have false belief systems shoveling hay into the mouth of that destructive elephant. The great news is that when we let God bring some wholeness to unhealthy propensities within us, we will not only make healthier relationships, we will also enjoy them immeasurably more. For crying out loud, we might even start liking some of those people we love but can hardly stand.
I’m going to take the risk of saying something pretty bold at this point so you’ll have a heads-up. In your pursuit of God-vested security, the only relationships in your life that will suffer rather than improve are the significantly unhealthy ones. I’ll go one step further. Those that are the unhealthiest might not even survive at all—and maybe they shouldn’t. But more on that later.
Right now we’re picking on ourselves, but later in our journey, we’re going to pick on the people in our lives who prefer us to be insecure and have a sick need to keep us that way. They are what the same specialist I quoted earlier calls “emotional predators.” No, you are not the only one to blame, but girlfriend, you are the only one you can change. God is willing. God is able. Let Him get to that terrified part of you that devalues the rest of you.
As we draw this chapter to a close, let’s not allow our focus on personal relationships to fool us into thinking that this is the only area of our lives at risk over insecurity. It’s just the most painful. The same self-doubt, self-consciousness and fear that dog us at home will dog us all the way to work and bark like a miniature schnauzer at our desks. Not only will insecurity cheat us of reaching and then operating consistently at maximum potential, it also will turn our co-workers into threats and trap us into becoming posers. It will also chase us to church, where we’ll be so distracted by who we know or don’t know, where we sit or don’t sit, what brand we are or aren’t wearing, that we probably won’t hear three words of the message.
This is the perfect spot to try my own hand at a succinct definition of insecurity: self-sabotage. Insecurity is miserable. That’s the bottom line. We don’t need it. We don’t want it. And we really can live without it. So what would happen if we quit being accomplices in our own misery?
Taken
from So Long, Insecurity by Beth Moore. Copyright © 2010 by Beth Moore.
Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.
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