One Journey Leads to Another
This fall I joined a Women’s group to do a Beth Moore study titled “James, Mercy Triumphs”. During this study, I was confronted by James every week. It started with perseverance and endurance and to count our struggles as joy. “Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way” James 1:2-4 MSG
I don’t know about you but I’m a person who’s always looking for short cuts; I’m efficient and organized and I want to live that way. I look for the shortest lines in the grocery store and the traffic lanes that will get me moving the fastest. I am not one to want to be “in” anything; especially if it’s uncomfortable or painful; which it usually is if it’s changing me. James confronted me with the reminder of needing to go “through” things with God and allow Him to refine and perfect me in the process. I want to do anything but go through things; I want to go over them, under, around….anything just to get to the other side and move on.
I meet with a lady once a month and we talk about where I’m seeing God in my life. She recommended a book to me: “So long insecurity” by Beth Moore. Well, I didn’t really think I had much insecurity but I trust her so I started reading it. Wow! I’m finding the things James confronted me with are my insecurity issues. Things like:
- Comparing myself to others
- Being critical and judgmental
- Forgetting who I am and believing the lies of the world and the enemy
- Discriminating and treating people differently
- Slander
- Not loving myself in a healthy, balanced way
And that’s just the beginning – I just started this book.
Like Beth I have abuse in my past. I made poor relationship choices; I just kept choosing the same man only with a different face, if that makes any sense. There was a season in my life that my mom disowned me. According to the book; these are the types of things that can cause insecurity.
At the end of the James study I thought I was closing the book on it but it turns out that God didn’t just bring me on a journey through James, he brought me to a deeper journey of working on my insecurity issues with Him. I guess that means I’ll have to be “in” it with Him and go through it; no short-cuts. I need to hang in there; persevere, endure and allow Him to do His work.
In the study of James, Beth said a couple of things that I need to hang onto as I walk out my journey of insecurity:
- I am who God says I am and not the numbing sum of Satan’s accusations
- I am loved and not despised, held and not forsaken, cherished and not ejected, enjoyed and not just endured.
If you haven’t read the book “So Long Insecurity” by Beth Moore, do it!