On Becoming a Secure Person

‘I know whom I have believed’

It seems we are just born with a sense of insecurity.  As infants we may need our pacifier, special blanket, and as we grow we find comfort and solace in our toys, our mother’s voice, music, familiar relationships,  etc.  However, many things attack our rather fragile sense of security and well-being.  An absent or very ill parent, loss of a sibling when a child [will I die young also?] a traumatic life experience [serious car accident, school shooting, threatening climactic events] and a host of other disturbing experiences can batter and fracture our emotional fortress we attempt to construct for ourselves.  Anxiety appears to be one of the top issues for young adults [‘Over 60 percent of Gen Z have an anxiety disorder’-the hill.com].

We normally attempt to reduce our anxiousness, or feelings of insecurity by arranging our life in ways that tend to increase our sense of confidence, comfort, and well-being.  Many of these, I suggest, are related to our feeling insecure in our relations with others, thus we attempt to enhance our ‘image’ in the eyes of our peers. We might work on our physical appearance including the clothes we wear or seek to obtain the latest ‘gadget’ with which to impress others.   We might attempt to increase our ‘competence’ in a particular field of knowledge or talent so as to appear smarter, or better than others at this or that.  We covet gold medals and trophies in sport, GOAT status [greatest of all time], winning academic debates or contests, earning advanced academic degrees, musical competitions, and there is, of course, usually financial benefits and notoriety that result from achieving higher levels of ‘know how’ which often leads to employment or more desirable employment.

For some, a sense of security is found in a person’s associations i.e. belonging to a certain group, family, gang, club, fraternity, profession, Facebook friends, etc. And for some, the particular connections one has can be a powerful source of confidence, and well- being.  Someone might search their family tree to see to whom they have some connection, hopefully to a well-known person!  We like being part of a group to which we can then identify, and having that sense of connection can help strengthen our effort to avoid a sense of isolation or aloneness and thus we feel more secure sensing that connection.

For some, substantial effort is expended to obtain and retain sufficient material resources to enhance their sense of security.  Honest [and even dishonest] work is pursued to earn and preserve the financial assets that are believed will provide the emotional security desired, as well as ‘buy’ the pleasures of this life.

Security is an illusion

The reality is, however, that true security in this earthly life is an illusion, or at least one that can easily vaporize.  Threats from disease, from nature, e.g. earthquakes, floods, fires, accidents, from fellow humans who may shoot and kill us even not knowing who we are, all siren the reality that this life is not the place that true, solid never-threatened security can be found.  Obviously, some earthly situations are more amenable to establishing our own ‘fortress’ than others. We can take steps to protect ourselves somewhat, but ultimately there is always the threat of loss of something we treasure including our own life at the hands of one thing or another.

A different kind of security

The apostle Paul was a very remarkable and unusual person.  He disclosed how zealous he had been to acquire the ‘badges’ of honor and prestige available to him in the religious culture of his day and time.  Paul was ‘well connected’ via his tribal association, family relationships, level of professional and personal development, zealous commitment in his work, and virtuous character.  This is how he describes himself in his letter to the Philippian church [Phil 3:3-7]:

“Indeed, if others have reason for confidence in their own efforts [to please God], I have even more! I was circumcised when I was eight days old. I am a pure-blooded citizen of Israel and a member of the tribe of Benjamin -a real Hebrew if there ever was one! I was a member of the Pharisees, who demand the strictest obedience to the Jewish law. I was so zealous that I harshly persecuted the church.  And as for righteousness I obeyed the law without fault. I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done.  Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.  For His sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all garbage, so that I could gain Christ and become one with Him.” [NLT]

Paul changed the foundation of his confidence before God and others from relying on his own tribal history, family, and personal achievements, to that of a new association, a new and transforming connection-one with Christ Himself.  He says everything is worthless when compared with the value of knowing Christ and living for Him.  Our fear of loss, of some thing or someone we value highly is one very powerful reason for our chronic sense of anxiety.  Paul says, in essence, that he lost everything when he came to know in a personal way, the living Christ. But he also says his loss, though dramatic and traumatic as it was, he exchanged for something new and much, much better: his relationship with his Lord, Jesus.  He even boldly says that all that he had valued before meeting Christ, he now considered garbage.  Paul’s former sense of security, his mental/emotional fortress of confidence was demolished when he was confronted by the living Christ.  Paul walked away from that ‘fortress’ and began to live a very circumstantially uncertain daily life, one that few people would choose due to it being loaded with uncertainties, and therefore creating massive insecurities.  But Paul’s confidence was no longer in his former relationships, personal achievements, or competencies, but instead, as he later said ‘I know whom I have believed [Jesus], and am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day.” [II Timothy 1:12].  Paul’s sense of security was not in this life at all.  It was in the next: “For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain” [Phil 1:21].  And Paul’s confidence that His master would oversee his life to the very end, enabled him to live his daily life with confidence:

“Therefore, we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day, For, momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison. While we look not at the things which are seen but at the things which are not seen, for the things which are seen are temporal but the things which are not seen are eternal.” [II Cor 4:16-18]

“And now compelled by the Spirit, I am going to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there.  I only know that in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that prison and hardships are facing me.  However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me-the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace”

 [Acts 20: 22-24] NIV

Once we have released our rather desperate and slippery grip on those things and relationships that are the basis for our sense of personal security, we are better prepared to realize what is the true and real basis for our security-our personal relationship with God– a true fortress, built on the rock and not the sand [Matt 7:24-29].  True security is found in Him, even if everything we possess and every relationship we treasure and hold dear in this earthly life, including our own physical life, is lost.

Am I, are you, becoming a more secure person? Some things just profoundly matter, and this is one of them.

‘Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do what I say’? [Luke 6:46]

CJS