Crippled By Insecurity
Where Is Your Heart Focused?
As Christians who have been raised up in Christ to newness of life, we long to live for the glory of the Lord. Deep down in our born again souls there is a spiritual desire to faithfully serve God’s purposes and bring honor to his name with our lives. But sadly, because of our remaining corruptions of sin, this desire is not the only thing rumbling around in our hearts. We also carry with us many fears, doubts, temptations, and insecurities. This array of spiritual challenges can take many forms, but they all work by the same essential principle: They turn our eyes away from God and place our focus and attention on something else.
Fear takes our eyes off of God by telling us there is something bigger and stronger than God.
Doubt takes our eyes off of God by telling us God will not come through for us so we need to rely on something else.
Temptation takes our eyes off of God by telling us there is something more satisfying than God.
Insecurity takes our eyes off of God by telling us that it is all up to us.
In each case, our desire to obediently serve the Lord with our lives is stifled because our focus on the Lord is supplanted by a focus on something else. As I was reading the Bible this morning I saw this very truth in the life of Moses and I recognized my own struggles in his.
Moses’ Insecurity & God’s Answer
In Exodus 3:7-10 God announced to Moses the calling he had on his life. As Moses shuffled along, tending his flocks as an obscure Midianite shepherd, God spoke to him and told him that he would be sent to Egypt in order to confront the most mighty ruler on earth at that time. The Great I AM told the lowly Moses that he was calling him to “bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt,” (Ex. 3:10).
Moses’ response reveals how self-focused and self-relying insecurity immediately began to cripple his heart from obedience to God’s calling. His first words back to God were these: “Who am I that I should go…?” (v11).
Do you notice the word that is repeated twice in the beginning of Moses’ reply? It is the first person pronoun “I”. Moses was afraid and deeply insecure about how he could ever possibly fulfill God’s calling on his life. He knew that he was not enough for such a task. He knew that he did not have the wisdom or strength or goodness or determination, or any other quality that would be needed in order to fulfill God’s purpose for him. As is so often true for ourselves, Moses’ insecurities caused his eyes to be turned away from God and onto himself. The result was that Moses was hobbled in his calling to serve the Lord.
So what was God’s reply to Moses? God’s first words back to Moses were these: “But I will be with you…” (v12).
Moses’ eyes had been turned upon himself, and as a result, he was crippled by fearful insecurity (a truth further observed throughout the rest of Exodus 3-4). And God’s answer was not to tell Moses how strong or wise or capable Moses is, but rather to turn Moses’ eyes back upon the LORD his God. God’s answer to our crippling insecurities is always himself. We will never have the confidence to faithfully follow God’s calling on our lives so long as we are focused on ourselves. The greatest question we must continually ask in the face of our insecurities is not, “Who am I?” or “How am I going to do this?” But rather, “Who is my God? Who is this God who has both called me to serve him in this way and promised to be with me as I obey his will?”
And this is exactly how the story in Exodus 3 flows. Before God revealed Moses’ calling in Exodus 3:7-10, he first revealed glorious truths about himself to Moses through the burning bush in Exodus 3:1-6.
Why the Burning Bush?
You will recall that the characteristic which Moses found most intriguing about the burning bush was the fact that although the bush burned, it did not burn up (v3). This reality was not an arbitrary detail or a frivolous parlor trick. This theophany was a purposeful illustration intended to reveal God’s eternal self-existence and independence.
In the ancient world, fire was an integral part of daily life. As a husband and father, it is doubtless that Moses had spent countless hours gathering fire wood to cook and to keep his family warm. Every other fire which Moses had ever seen depended on fuel to sustain its life. Without fuel, or the burning up of the bush, the fire could not continue to exist. So why was this fire different?
This fire was different because it was being used as a picture of the one true God. Through this illustrative image Yahweh was revealing to Moses that he is the eternal God who requires nothing outside of himself for his existence. He was showing Moses that he is the God who needs nothing, depends on nothing, can be stifled or stopped by nothing, and who has the omnipotent power within himself to accomplish all his holy will.
In other words, before God issued Moses’ calling (v7-10), he first revealed the unique glory of the One who calls (v1-6). He was showing Moses that this call does not depend on the strength or wisdom of the called for its fulfillment, but rather on the inexhaustible strength and wisdom of the Caller himself—and that Caller is the eternal, unchangeable, and omnipotent God, the Creator and Sustainer of heaven and earth.
Are You Crippled By Insecurity?
God has a purpose for your life, dear Christian. You too have a calling from the Lord. We all share the universal callings of the Christian life, but we also have unique callings within our marriages, our families, our workplaces and communities. It is easy to feel afraid and hide from the calling of God on our lives because that calling is always greater than we are. If we look to ourselves we will be crippled by insecurity. But the answer to Moses’ fears and insecurities is the same answer that you and I still need today.
If we would be faithful to the Lord and overcome the crippling fears that keep us from speaking up for Christ, or that imprison us in fruitless anxiety and doubt, then we need to ask God to help us do just one critical thing. We need to ask God to help us take our eyes off of ourselves and our problems, and place them back upon the Almighty God. We need to warm our fearful hearts by the soul-strengthening fires of the burning bush on Mt. Sinai. We need to stop asking, “Who am I that I should go…?” and instead remember the words of God, “But I will be with you…”
And what does it really mean that God will be with us as we serve him with godly sincerity in our callings? It means that those who stand in the service of Christ will be upheld, defended, and empowered by the inexhaustible might of the everlasting God. It means that those who stand for Christ are never standing alone.
With humble faith let us learn to say,
“The LORD is my light and my salvation;
whom shall I fear?
The LORD is the stronghold of my life;
of whom shall I be afraid?” (Ps. 27:1).“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me,” (Psalm 23:4).
Let us walk with the same faith-fueled confidence as the author of these psalms, because the same God who has been with his people of old, is the same God who is with his people today, (Lk. 1:74-75).