Insecurity is one of my besetting sins. It’s one of those core-issue, mindset kind of sins that affects everything I think and do. It has been a part of my life for so long that I don’t even have to think about it, my mind just automatically runs all of it’s decisions through the Insecurity Evaluation Filter to determine the amount of risk to my ego. Let’s just say… it’s a stressful way to live.

I can finally talk about insecurity honestly because its hold on my soul is cracking.

While I was growing up, I envied, despised, and totally did not understand all those confident kids. I both hated them and wished that I could be like them. I strove for perfection in everything that I did, somehow planning that once I was perfect I too would be confident. As an insecure perfectionist, I was plagued with awareness of all the areas in which I did not measure up, and thus all the more insecure as I had to hide my shortcomings from the world.

I have come to realize that perfection isn’t the secret to confidence, truth is. When I agree with God that I am in need of grace and forgiveness, insecurity loses its power because I have nothing left to hide. When I agree with God that I am justified and adopted as a joint heir with Christ, confidence finds root-not in my perfection-but in God’s declaration of my righteousness. I no longer have to live life in painful insecurity of my shortcomings and sin, not because I have never sinned, but because I am confident that Christ has made me clean.