“For as his share is who goes down into the battle, so shall his share be who stays by the baggage. They shall share alike.” 1 Samuel 30:24
Last week I sent out a book reading plan for Beth Moore’s So Long, Insecurity You’ve Been a Bad Friend to Us. In order to keep us all together, even if you’re not reading along, I wanted to post something on each week’s reading. And maybe we can even get some conversation going in the comments.
Chapter 3: She Doesn’t Look a Certain Way
“According to the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, the first definition of the word insecure is this: ‘Not secure.'” – p. 29
-What is one area in your life where you feel “not secure” and you’d like to say, “So Long”?
+That insecure feeling that I’ll never be enough, have enough, do enough, say enough, etc.
“Making assumptions about who struggles with insecurity and who doesn’t based on what they appear to have going for them suggests how little we understand the nature of insecurity and what feeds it.” – p. 31
-If you could change one thing in your life that you feel would “fix everything” what would it be? Why?
+My fear of failure!!!!! It keeps me from even trying, and that’s just not right. That and I would have more money, cause you know, money fixes everything right? 😉
“We all fear that we aren’t who we are pretending to be. The more careful we are about what we’re projecting, the more driven we tend to be by fear.” – p. 33
-That’s a powerful statement! Do we pretend to be someone we’re not? My mind immediately jumps to the possibility that I’m pretending to be more than I am. But upon further inspection I’m realizing that, for me at least, it is more often that I pretend to be much less than what God tells me I am. Simply because what He tells me I am scares the tar out of me.
Child, Beloved Heir to the One True God; Creator of the UNIVERSE, that’s a LOT more responsibility and clout than I feel like I have in this world! Yet His word tells me that I have power and authority over angels and demons! ME!?!
Beth says on page 35 that “believing that everything God says about us is true” is the answer to dealing with our insecurities.
-What do you think?
+YES!!!!!!! Now to just DO IT!
Beth talks a lot about physical appearance in this chapter, big surprise. This culture puts TONS of pressure on its females to be attractive and remain that way. Yet it’s standard of what is attractive is completely unattainable. Even the models of physical perfection aren’t physically perfect enough for the standard! And then, if we throw on top of that, the level of moral perfection religion demands; we’re sunk! And that’s not even mentioning financial standards, athletic standards, and relational standards.
This culture’s standards are so messed up that it’s simply impossible to completely fulfill them. But perhaps that’s a good thing because it points us to the One person telling us that it’s OK to be imperfect. It’s OK to miss the mark, not that we should stop trying to hit it, but rather we should stop hitting ourselves and each other when we miss it. Jesus took those hits for us so that we could be spared them and I’m fairly certain it would upset Him greatly to know that we’re punishing ourselves for a crime He already took the punishment for.
In today’s reading David’s army was split into two groups. There was one group that went out to battle and another group that was worn and weary and couldn’t press on any further so they stayed with the baggage and kept it safe. When the battling group returned, some among them didn’t feel that the others should reap the benefits of the battle. David, the man after God’s own heart, didn’t agree with them. It was his belief that their job of guarding the luggage was JUST as important as conquering the enemy at hand.
In the same way, Jesus knew that we simply weren’t able to battle the enemy, so He did it for us and shares the spoils of that victory with us! Isn’t He just SO GOOD!?! 😀
So what about you? Are you reading So Long, Insecurity too? What did you think about this week’s reading? How do you feel about my take on it?
* Moore, Beth. So Long, Insecurity You’ve Been a Bad Friend to Us. 2010. Tyndale House Publishers.
Tamar Knochel 