ADDICTED TO FALSE SECURITY
I had been mourning over some really painful things for days. Life doesn’t always go the way we expect it to. People let us down. We let ourselves down. Life…it lets us down. Learning to let go of what we expect things to be is just painful. We fight to make things right—rather what we perceive to be right. We wage war within our minds over our bad choices, replaying scenes as if to find the missing key that will unlock the door to security once again.
As a Christian, my hope is in Jesus Christ. I am, for the most part, resolute in my faith. I take no credit for the strength of my faith because I am naturally cynical, distrusting, and fearful. But God has set within me a foundation of faith in Him I cannot explain. How does one explain the unexplainable? All I know is it is supernatural.
However, every faith is tested. It must be. And sometimes God has to show us what our faith is really made of. Though He determines the measure of our faith, the impurities of our flesh offer no help to grow it, but the opposite. And I was about to learn something about mine.
Things I counted on were failing. It felt so burdensome, like a heavy jacket too big for me. I wanted to strip it off and give it to its rightful owner. Go to God, I thought. Just pray, read His Word. You’ll feel better then. I did those things. Multiple times. And I didn’t feel better.
This morning while texting with my friend, I tried my best to offer hope to her in her pain. I had to admit I struggled to see clearly through the heavy burden I currently bore. Failing marriages of women I love, failing health of cancer stricken people I love, failing news of Sri Lanka Christians referred to as “Easter Worshippers” blown to pieces while worshiping Jesus—not Easter; my husband’s unemployment for nearly the fifth month, uncertainty of the future, uncertainty of anything.
In the middle of our conversation the Holy Spirit spoke to my heart. “I intercede for you with groanings too deep for words” (Romans 8:26) I paused and realized that was what was happening. As I bore the pain for others, the Lord was bearing the pain for us all.
I grabbed my Bible and flipped to Romans 8 to read the scripture in context. From verse 1 through the end of the chapter God answered. He answered my grief and my confusion and He put a word to the heaviness I couldn’t shake. Insecurity. That was the heavy coat I desperately tried to throw off—the cumbersome weight of false security. God showed me that there are times I choose to wear that coat. All I could say was, “I get it now.”
Rick came in with his coffee to where I was sitting, with my Bible opened wide to Romans 8 across my lap.
“Can I please share with you what God showed me this morning?” I asked. He graciously let me.
I cried as I read Romans chapter 8 out loud to my husband. Not just a little tear that moistens your eyes, but sobs. I could hardly make out Paul’s words on the page at times. I had to take breaks because I couldn’t speak clearly. I grieved, I rejoiced, and I grieved again. Noticing the look on my husband’s face, I imagined he probably didn’t understand what was happening to me. I apologized for concerning him, but how could I explain what I could barely grasp myself? As I reached the end of the chapter, verses 38 and 39 broke me even more, as if that were even possible. I wept in my hands.
“For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
I heard God like never before, through Paul’s words, through my own voice. I was being set free from the power of a million pound lie while grace and peace flooded in. My only true security is in Christ and for the first time I believed it.
Are you feeling insecure about something?
Do you wish you could just do something? Change something? Be something?
Please read Romans 8.
It will tell you we live in a completely insecure world—corrupt by sin. All of creation, humanity—corrupt. And we all continue to grip so tightly to the things of this world expecting, demanding, hoping, forcing it all to offer us the security it has no capacity to fulfill. No marriage, no job, no government, no friendship, no remedy, no army, no bank account, no contract, no promise from creation is capable of providing the security we so desperately crave.
But Christ.
The pills we take, the therapy we need, the books we read, the education we attain, the false religious ceremonies we perform, the addictions we practice, the lies we believe (and tell), the money we hoard or spend to gain false security is killing us.
Insecurity. This is the world on sin.